MousHero for Safari Documentation and Examples
What is MousHero?
MousHero (mouse-hero) is a Safari for Mac extension that adds automation superpowers to your browsing experience: trigger URL actions by adding up to 3 custom context menu items to Safari’s right-click menu.
Just by right-clicking on a webpage, you’ll be able to launch apps, services and automations (for instance with third party applications such as Shortcuts, Keyboard Maestro, Drafts, etc.), optionally passing the currently selected text, destination link, active page URL and title as parameters.
How do I configure MousHero?
MousHero unlocks powerful capabilities, but is very easy to use:
a. Download MousHero from the Mac App Store;
b. Launch MousHero from your Applications folder and follow the on-screen instructions to enable the MousHero Safari extension;
c. Click on MousHero’s icon in the Safari toolbar to show the customisation interface;
d. Add a name for the custom menu item and the URL you want to execute when you click it;
e. Now, right-click anywhere in your Safari page, or select some text and then right-click, and your custom actions will appear in the context menu.
Can I pass the selected text / link as parameter into the action URL? What about the website address and title?
Yes, yes and yes! Just type in SELECTION as placeholder in the action URL to have it dynamically replaced with the selected text when you run the action, and use the LINKTO placeholder for the destination link’s address.
Additional placeholders are PAGEURL for the website address and PAGETITLE for the, you guessed it, title of the current page.
And you can combine multiple placeholders in a single action URL, MousHero will take care of replacing them while properly percent-encoding the text. See the examples below for details.
I need some examples of URLs I can use…
You can add any kind of URL to a MousHero action, so the only limits are your imagination and the availability of a URL scheme for the third-party applications and services you’re using.
Here’s a few examples of what you’ll be able to achieve with just a right-click inside Safari, to inspire you and show how the SELECTION, LINKTO, PAGEURL and PAGETITLE placeholders can be used to pass informations as parameters in the URL:
| Use case | URL |
|---|---|
| Open a specific website in a new panel | https://www.instagram.com/millakillapilla/ |
| Run your Shortcuts | shortcuts://run-shortcutname=ShortcutName |
| Run your Shortucts passing the selection as parameter | shortcuts://run-shortcut?name=ShortcutName&input=text&text=SELECTION |
| Run your Shortucts passing the page URL as parameter | shortcuts://run-shortcut?name=ShortcutName&input=text&text=PAGEURL |
| Create a new Drafts note with the selected text/link | drafts://x-callback-url/create?text=SELECTION-LINKTO |
| Run a Drafts action without creating a new note | drafts://x-callback-url/runAction?text=SELECTION&action=ActionName |
| Open the Inbox project in OmniFocus | omnifocus:///inbox |
| Add the selected text as task in OmniFocus | omnifocus://x-callback-url/add?name=SELECTION |
| Add page title to OmniFocus with the URL in the note | omnifocus://x-callback-url/add?name=PAGETITLE¬e=PAGEURL |
| Run a Keyboard Maestro macro passing the selection (1) | kmtrigger://macro=MacroName&value=SELECTION |
| Search the selected text on Google Maps | https://www.google.com/maps/search/SELECTION |
| Search the selected text on StackOverflow | https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=SELECTION |
| Search the selected text on Amazon | https://www.amazon.com/s?k=SELECTION |
(1) You can then access the passed-in parameter in your Keyboard Maestro macro by referencing the built-in %TriggerValue% variable.
Can I open a file or a folder on my Mac?
No, MousHero is sandboxed and cannot open files and folders on disk. This is a good thing for security, but also means that the file:// URL scheme does not work.
I still need help!
Please, don’t hesitate to contact me, Cesare, at support@cdf1982.com and I’ll do my best to assist you!