Copy URL to clipboard from Chromium apps by jankeesvw · Pull Request #1458 · basecamp/omarchy

jankeesvw · 2025-09-04T22:43:49Z

This afternoon I was at Rails World, talking to @dhh, I was asking if there is a way to copy the current URL to the clipboard with a Omarchy web application. We came up with an idea to use a Chrome extension that would be bundled with Omarchy. In this PR there is a bundled Chrome extension that is loaded via the /config/chromium-flags.conf.

Below in the screenshot you'll see an example of how it works. I'm browsing with the preinstalled HEY application, when I press ALT+SHIFT+U the current URL is on my clipboard and I see a small notification.

How to test:

cd ~/.local/share/omarchy
gh pr checkout 1458
omarchy-update

pkill chromium # not required

You should see this:

# Running migration (1757021485)
# Install Copy URL extension for Chromium

Then start a chromium browser, et voila.

hjanuschka · 2025-09-05T12:59:05Z

guess chromium needs atleast one full restart?!

jankeesvw · 2025-09-05T16:57:51Z

guess chromium needs atleast one full restart?!

My solution works when you don't have any other Chromium open, so it has to be the first.

Right now I'm working on making a .crx, which should work.

hjanuschka · 2025-09-05T17:16:51Z

i wonder if we should just patch chromium to have a global hotkey 🤨

jankeesvw · 2025-09-05T17:52:10Z

i wonder if we should just patch chromium to have a global hotkey 🤨

Is that easier to do? I think this extension could work.

hjanuschka · 2025-09-05T18:11:14Z

shouldn't be that hard, extension for me feels a bit heavy, but well on the otherside if we can ship it so that it works reliable

so your PR works if the first chromium that launches has the config to load the extension?
if you'd publish the extension to the store, we could just enable it by default via policy (i think this is what is planned for 1-password; or done already)

jankeesvw · 2025-09-05T18:54:43Z

shouldn't be that hard, extension for me feels a bit heavy, but well on the otherside if we can ship it so that it works reliable

so your PR works if the first chromium that launches has the config to load the extension? if you'd publish the extension to the store, we could just enable it by default via policy (i think this is what is planned for 1-password; or done already)

Shipping it to the store is the easiest, but the disadvantage is that this is also an attack vector that could be exploited, if someone overwrites the extension (through my account) they could compromise the browser. That's why I started with making the extension locally.

The flag --load-extension works great, but only if you aren't running Chromium, otherwise it reuses the existing Chromium.

I'll try to make some time this weekend. Just got back from the conference.

hjanuschka · 2025-09-05T19:16:51Z

cant we somehow download it and verify the hash? to protect against tempered extension?

The flag --load-extension works great, but only if you aren't running Chromium, otherwise it reuses the existing Chromium.

yes this is because there can only be one i nstance running, we could add --load-extension= to https://github.com/basecamp/omarchy/blob/master/config/chromium-flags.conf

so no matter how chromium is started it gets the flags

jankeesvw · 2025-09-05T19:22:42Z

Thanks for the pointer! I'll take a look at it tomorrow.

hjanuschka · 2025-09-07T06:34:53Z

so - i am not the one deciding to merge (cc @dhh ) - but overall this looks good to me.

i would like to rename the extension to "omarchy" - and keep it as a place for further stuff - and not making it explicitly only for copy of url.

dhh · 2025-09-07T18:41:24Z

I'm digging this! But let's use ctrl + alt + L as the hotkey to mirror that ctrl + L is how you access the location bar. Let's refer to icon.png in the root of Omarchy folder too. And let's put this under extensions/copy-url at the top level instead of applications.

jankeesvw · 2025-09-07T19:15:50Z

I'm digging this! But let's use ctrl + alt + L as the hotkey to mirror that ctrl + L is how you access the location bar. Let's refer to icon.png in the root of Omarchy folder too. And let's put this under extensions/copy-url at the top level instead of applications.

Nice to hear that you like it, I agree with your suggestions. However there are two minor "issues";

ctrl + alt + L is not available, but ctrl + shift + L is
The icon in the root is an ascii file, can I include a PNG version of the logo in the root?

What do you think?

jankeesvw · 2025-09-07T20:53:33Z

@dhh I just pushed an update to this branch. I went with ctrl + shift + L, since it's close to ctrl + L like you mentioned. I also added a PNG version of the logo in the root and created a symlink from the extension folder to that file. Plus, I moved everything to the suggested folder. 👌

In Omarchy web apps it's impossible to get the curent URL to share it in another applications. This commit adds a browser extension which is included by default via the chromium-flags.conf config. With this extension you can get the current URL via a keyboard shortcut. The default shortcut for getting the current URL is `Ctrl+Shift+L`, this shortcut can be changed via this page: chrome://extensions/shortcuts.

dhh · 2025-09-14T14:46:31Z

Hmm, I can get this to load, but the hotkey is not getting picked up. Ctrl + Shift + L doesn't do anything. I checked that the extension is loaded, and it is. But yeah, no hotkey is exposed. Not in chromium itself, not in the webapps.

In my testing and research I found out that not all shortcuts are available as suggested_key. We still want to use L because that's easy to remember because we associate it with the location bar.

dhh · 2025-09-15T10:03:54Z

Moving it to Alt + Shift + L worked 👌

Better mirrors Ctrl + L as well

jankeesvw · 2025-09-15T10:07:27Z

@dhh ah, you noticed my changed. :-)

I just asked some friends to test it. I'm glad it now works on your machine too.

dhh · 2025-09-15T10:21:44Z

I had Alt + L working, but then I couldn't get it working again?? It refused to allow anything but Alt + Shift + L.

jankeesvw · 2025-09-15T10:23:54Z

I had Alt + L working, but then I couldn't get it working again?? It refused to allow anything but Alt + Shift + L.

I had the same issue, strange. There is something funky with these shortcuts. It's not well documented, what should, and what shouldn't work.

But Ctrl-Alt+L works, notification with the world icon:

* Copy current URL to clipboard with browser extension In Omarchy web apps it's impossible to get the curent URL to share it in another applications. This commit adds a browser extension which is included by default via the chromium-flags.conf config. With this extension you can get the current URL via a keyboard shortcut. The default shortcut for getting the current URL is `Ctrl+Shift+L`, this shortcut can be changed via this page: chrome://extensions/shortcuts. * Change the shortcut to Alt+Shift+L In my testing and research I found out that not all shortcuts are available as suggested_key. We still want to use L because that's easy to remember because we associate it with the location bar. * Improve notification language * Move it to just Alt + L since that's not used Better mirrors Ctrl + L as well * Move this under default/chromium * Fix symlink * It didn't like Alt+L alone after all --------- Co-authored-by: David Heinemeier Hansson <david@hey.com>

jankeesvw commented Sep 4, 2025

View reviewed changes

Comment thread migrations/1757021485.sh Outdated

jankeesvw force-pushed the copy-to-clipboard-from-chromium branch 2 times, most recently from 0955a84 to debfe8c Compare September 5, 2025 05:35

This comment was marked as outdated.

Sign in to view

jankeesvw force-pushed the copy-to-clipboard-from-chromium branch 4 times, most recently from 16919f8 to d009947 Compare September 6, 2025 15:26

jankeesvw marked this pull request as ready for review September 6, 2025 15:28

jankeesvw changed the title ~~Copy URL to clipboard (with Chrome extension) from Chromium apps~~ Copy URL to clipboard from Chromium apps Sep 6, 2025

This comment was marked as outdated.

Sign in to view

hjanuschka reviewed Sep 7, 2025

View reviewed changes

Comment thread config/chromium-flags.conf Outdated

jankeesvw force-pushed the copy-to-clipboard-from-chromium branch from 9604f43 to 7561714 Compare September 7, 2025 09:21

jankeesvw force-pushed the copy-to-clipboard-from-chromium branch from 7561714 to cdad7a9 Compare September 7, 2025 20:45

jankeesvw force-pushed the copy-to-clipboard-from-chromium branch 3 times, most recently from 06e2205 to b64f284 Compare September 7, 2025 21:03

jankeesvw force-pushed the copy-to-clipboard-from-chromium branch from b64f284 to d972704 Compare September 10, 2025 08:48

This comment was marked as outdated.

Sign in to view

dhh changed the base branch from master to dev September 14, 2025 14:41

Merge branch 'dev' into copy-to-clipboard-from-chromium

b060da1

dhh added this to the 3.0 milestone Sep 14, 2025

jankeesvw and others added 4 commits September 15, 2025 10:57

Merge branch 'dev' into copy-to-clipboard-from-chromium

84a87cd

Change the shortcut to Alt+Shift+L

40b8fd5

In my testing and research I found out that not all shortcuts are available as suggested_key. We still want to use L because that's easy to remember because we associate it with the location bar.

Merge branch 'dev' into copy-to-clipboard-from-chromium

b19794b

Improve notification language

fd9f98e

Move it to just Alt + L since that's not used

b001e07

Better mirrors Ctrl + L as well

Move this under default/chromium

9b84299

This comment was marked as outdated.

Sign in to view

dhh added 2 commits September 15, 2025 12:11

Fix symlink

2b35484

It didn't like Alt+L alone after all

281f8bc

dhh merged commit 1e6ddf5 into basecamp:dev Sep 15, 2025

jankeesvw deleted the copy-to-clipboard-from-chromium branch September 15, 2025 10:23

OmarSkalli mentioned this pull request Sep 17, 2025

When refreshing chromium config, make sure to reinstall google accounts #1737

Merged

davidguttman mentioned this pull request Oct 16, 2025

Copy URL to clipboard enhancement to also work on click #2493

Open

Conversation

jankeesvw commented Sep 4, 2025 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

Uh oh!

How to test:

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

This comment was marked as outdated.

hjanuschka commented Sep 5, 2025

Uh oh!

jankeesvw commented Sep 5, 2025

Uh oh!

hjanuschka commented Sep 5, 2025

Uh oh!

jankeesvw commented Sep 5, 2025

Uh oh!

hjanuschka commented Sep 5, 2025

Uh oh!

jankeesvw commented Sep 5, 2025 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

hjanuschka commented Sep 5, 2025 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

jankeesvw commented Sep 5, 2025

Uh oh!

This comment was marked as outdated.

hjanuschka commented Sep 7, 2025

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

dhh commented Sep 7, 2025

Uh oh!

jankeesvw commented Sep 7, 2025 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

jankeesvw commented Sep 7, 2025

Uh oh!

This comment was marked as outdated.

dhh commented Sep 14, 2025

Uh oh!

dhh commented Sep 15, 2025

Uh oh!

jankeesvw commented Sep 15, 2025

Uh oh!

This comment was marked as outdated.

dhh commented Sep 15, 2025

Uh oh!

jankeesvw commented Sep 15, 2025

Uh oh!

Reviewers

Assignees

Labels

Projects

Milestone

Development

Uh oh!

3 participants

jankeesvw commented Sep 4, 2025 •

edited

Loading

jankeesvw commented Sep 5, 2025 •

edited

Loading

hjanuschka commented Sep 5, 2025 •

edited

Loading

jankeesvw commented Sep 7, 2025 •

edited

Loading