Focus-Tab: AppleScript utility for opening or focusing browser tabs from the command line

focus-tab-explanation.md

Focus-Tab: Browser Tab Manager for macOS

Overview

Focus-Tab is an AppleScript utility that allows you to quickly open or switch to specific websites in your browser from the command line. It's particularly useful for:

• Workflow automation
• Quick navigation to frequently visited sites
• Scripts and shell aliases for browser-based tools
• Integration with other automation tools

Features

• Chrome-specific tab focusing: When used with Google Chrome, the script will search for existing tabs containing the provided URL and focus them instead of opening duplicate tabs
• Cross-browser support: Works with any browser on macOS (Safari, Firefox, Brave, etc.)
• Simple command-line interface: Just provide a URL and optionally specify the browser

Usage

osascript focus-tab.scpt <url> [browser]

Examples:

# Open or focus Google in Chrome (default browser)
osascript focus-tab.scpt google.com

# Open GitHub in Safari
osascript focus-tab.scpt github.com "Safari"

# Open YouTube in Brave Browser
osascript focus-tab.scpt youtube.com "Brave Browser"

How It Works

The script has two different behaviors depending on the browser:

1. For Google Chrome: The script will first search through all open windows and tabs for any URL containing the search term. If found, it will focus that tab instead of opening a new one.

2. For other browsers: The script will simply open the URL in a new tab (the tab-finding feature is Chrome-specific due to AppleScript compatibility limitations).

Use Cases

• Create shell aliases for frequently visited sites
• Use as part of more complex automation workflows
• Integrate with hotkeys or keyboard shortcut tools
• Control browser tabs from other applications or scripts

Installation

Simply save the focus-tab.scpt file to a convenient location on your macOS system.

For easier access, you might want to:

1. Place it in a scripts directory
2. Create a shell alias in your .zshrc or .bashrc file
3. Integrate with tools like Alfred, Raycast, or Keyboard Maestro

focus-tab.scpt

-- focus-tab.scpt
-- AppleScript to open or focus tabs in a browser
-- Usage: osascript focus-tab.scpt <url> [browser]
-- 
-- For Chrome: Attempts to find and focus existing tabs with matching URLs
-- For other browsers: Simply opens the URL in a new tab

on run argv
	set targetURL to item 1 of argv
	set browserName to "Google Chrome"
	
	if (count of argv) > 1 then
		set browserName to item 2 of argv
	end if
	
	tell application browserName
		activate
	end tell
	
	-- Make sure the browser is frontmost
	tell application "System Events"
		tell process browserName
			set frontmost to true
		end tell
	end tell
	
	-- Special handling for Chrome - try to find existing tabs
	if browserName is "Google Chrome" then
		set foundTab to false
		
		tell application "Google Chrome"
			-- First check if Chrome has any windows
			if (count of windows) > 0 then
				-- Prepare URL for comparison without http/https
				set searchTerm to targetURL
				
				-- Try to find and focus an existing tab
				repeat with w in windows
					try
						set tabIndex to 1
						repeat with t in tabs of w
							try
								set tabUrl to URL of t
								if tabUrl contains searchTerm then
									set active tab index of w to tabIndex
									set index of w to 1
									set foundTab to true
									exit repeat
								end if
								set tabIndex to tabIndex + 1
							on error
								-- Skip any tab that causes an error
								set tabIndex to tabIndex + 1
							end try
						end repeat
						
						if foundTab then exit repeat
					on error
						-- Skip any window that causes an error
					end try
				end repeat
				
				if foundTab then
					return "Focused existing tab with URL containing: " & targetURL
				end if
			end if
			
			-- If we reach here, we didn't find a matching tab
			-- Format URL and open it
			if targetURL does not start with "http" then
				set targetURL to "https://" & targetURL
			end if
			open location targetURL
		end tell
	else
		-- For other browsers, just open the URL
		tell application browserName
			if targetURL does not start with "http" then
				set targetURL to "https://" & targetURL
			end if
			open location targetURL
		end tell
	end if
	
	return targetURL
end run

gist-comment.md

Development Challenges

When creating this script, we encountered several significant challenges that are worth noting for anyone who might want to modify or extend it:

AppleScript Browser Interaction Limitations

1. Property Access Errors: We consistently encountered -2740 errors ("A property can't go after this identifier") when trying to access tab properties in browsers. This is why the Chrome-specific tab-finding approach is structured with careful error handling around each property access.

2. Syntax Sensitivity: AppleScript's syntax for error handling and property access within browser automation is extremely sensitive. Minor changes in structure would often result in -2741 errors ("Expected end of line but found identifier").

3. Browser Security Restrictions: Modern browsers have increasingly restricted what AppleScript can access, making consistent tab property access challenging.

Implementation Compromises

After multiple iterations, we made several design decisions:

1. Chrome-Specific Focusing: The tab-finding feature only works reliably in Chrome. We tried similar approaches with Safari and other browsers but encountered too many inconsistencies.

2. Error Handling Strategy: The script uses nested try/catch blocks to handle errors at different levels (window access, tab enumeration, URL property access) rather than failing completely.

3. Simplicity Over Comprehensiveness: For non-Chrome browsers, we opted for a simpler approach (just opening the URL) rather than trying to implement unreliable tab-finding logic.

These limitations explain why the script behavior differs between Chrome and other browsers, and why we recommend using it primarily with Chrome for the tab-focusing functionality.