Asa Dotzler: Firefox and more

one way on mac w/out using applescript:
- open terminal, navigate to firefox folder, and do ./firefox -P just once.
- when Profile Manager launches, uncheck the "Dont ask at startup" box
- Next time, just click on the firefox icon wherever you saved it in appdir. Choose your profile each time.

Tchung, yeah. That's right. Maybe I should have used the "launch Firefox with a specific profile" example as the primary one since that's what I was really after here. However, if you only occasionally need to use a separate profile, I think there's still lots of value in the AppleScript approach because you won't be prompted every time with the Profile Manager.

- A

Another way to do this is using the Automator application.

1) Open Automator
2) Double click on Run Shell Script
3) Paste the shell command (in this case: /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox -ProfileManager &> /dev/null &)
4) Save as Application.
5) Optionally fix the icon. The drag and drop never worked for me, so in my case I open the package and edit the icon file directly.

Except for step 5, I think this is a little friendlier for people who don't want to learn about AppleScript.

Jorge, yeah. That's actually the first way I did this but it leaves the Automator running in the Dock, as far as I can tell. The only way I found to make the Auotmator Dock icon go away was manually editing the package's plist file. That seemed a bit excessive compared to just writing the AppleScript "manually".

Any suggestions about how to make the Automator go away after the action is completed? It's like it needs a "shutdown self" or something like that.

- A

this is a good start.. now in windows if you do something like this...

firefox.exe -p -no-remote

you can open multiple profiles at the same time... So I have one session for browsing and another that acts as a Twitter/Social networking client... and another that is an alarm clock.. and another that acts as a testbed for new add-ons, etc, etc...

if you can do that an a Mac too.. then you are really getting somewhere.

this is a good start.. now in windows if you do something like this...

firefox.exe -p -no-remote

you can open multiple profiles at the same time... So I have one session for browsing and another that acts as a Twitter/Social networking client... and another that is an alarm clock.. and another that acts as a testbed for new add-ons, etc, etc...

if you can do that an a Mac too.. then you are really getting somewhere.

Asa: the & at the end of the command does the trick. That tells the terminal process (controlled by Automator) to run the command in a separate process. This way Automator exits immediately.

Jorge, thanks! I'll probably put together an update since I have that all written out (Automator was how I first tried this.) Maybe I'll do a screencast :-)

-A

Minor correction: "just drag and drop the Firefox icon right on top of little AppleScript icon in the top right corner of the Get Info window"

the icon is in the top-left corner

Thanks a lot for this tip.

Marius, thanks for that catch. Correcting.

- A

Thanks!

Launching a specific profile really helps me out. The window isn't automatically focused though. (From what I read applications launch hidden in 10.5 so as to not disrupt)

I taught myself some AppleScript to get Firefox to focus. I learned to use the activate keyword. But activate will try to launch Firefox if it hasn't launched yet. Firefox won't be fully launched if I use activate immediately after the command to start Firefox, so activate will try to launch another instance of Firefox.

Using the delay keyword didn't always work because Firefox can take different amounts of time to launch each time.

So this is what I ended up doing:

focusit()

on focusit()
tell application "Firefox"
if it is running then
activate
else
my focusit()
end if
end tell
end focusit

(If you are using Automator then you can add this code in a Run AppleScript action after the Run Shell Script Action)

Please let me know if there is a better way.

-mws

Unfortunately, my AppleScript can fail with a stack overflow if Firefox is slow to load.

I'm still learning AppleScript thanks to Asa. :)

This is my second try to bring focus Firefox after launching and it seems to work all the time for me.

repeat until application "Firefox" is frontmost
if application "Firefox" is running then tell application "Firefox" to activate
end repeat

Asa, you're my hero! I could not find an elegant way to do this. Thanks a bunch!

--Tristan

am not geek of mac but trying to be one and i have recently devloped a combination of apple script and automator with self shutting down if you want i can mail it or even send you the script

am not geek of mac but trying to be one and i have recently devloped a combination of apple script and automator with self shutting down if you want i can mail it or even send you the script

am not geek of mac but trying to be one and i have recently devloped a combination of apple script and automator with self shutting down if you want i can mail it or even send you the script

Thank u so much Asa
I've been looking for this since many weeks ago

and for Clay, its quite simple
just put -no-remote after your profile's name and its done.. :)
it's similar with windows shortcut

Thank u so much Asa
I've been looking for this since many weeks ago

and for Clay, its quite simple
just put -no-remote after your profile's name and its done.. :)
it's similar with windows shortcut

Sorry to be soooo excited, but I just about lost it when I searched "firefox profile launch app for mac" and found your page. I KNEW that AppleScript thing had to be good for SOMETHING. Thank you so much for writing this tutorial. You have saved me much cursing and extra keystrokes and mouse clicks.