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Is there a firefox addin which can do that or can you point me to an easy tut to do that ?

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3 Answers

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Can you do with the "Send to" extension? The developer says it's a test version and it has not been updated in a while (2004) so you will have to modify it to allow the more recent versions of Firefox.

Sends selected text to a file and then opens that file in an external application. You can use the contextmenu or a shortcut (ctrl+e).

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Edit: after modifying the "em:maxVersion" entry in the install.rdf file inside sendto.xpi, I could install it on Firefox 3.5 and it works nearly fine. The first time, it works OK, subsequent times, it does not. There is an error in the extension. I'll see if I can fix it (I've never done much Javascript and no Firefox add-on).

Re-Edit: I fixed it (roughly) but it works several times now. Get my updated version here.

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Wow I installed your modified version and it worked great ! I just don't know when it appends to text file though append is unchecked. – asksuperuser Nov 4 '09 at 19:40
I don't know much about firefox addon, is the source code open so that I can customize it ? – asksuperuser Nov 4 '09 at 19:55
Firefox add-on have a .xpi extension. Actually it's a zip file. Open it and you can access the code. It's stored in a .jar file, which is also a zip. There you'll find many files. Most of the interesting stuff is in the .js files containing the Javascript code. It always appends in the temp file, the checkbox only tells whether it appends at the top or at the bottom of the file. If you want another behavior, let me know and I'll code it for you. – Snark Nov 4 '09 at 22:35
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If you're the author of the .exe program I would try and bind it to a particular Windows shortcut so it will "grab" the selected text and run the program.

If you're not I wouldn't know how to do it.

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Good idea also, thanks. – asksuperuser Nov 4 '09 at 19:46
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The add-on RunWith 0.3 does what you ask:

Runs the selected string as a command line parameter of a local program via right-click or Tools menu.

It dates from May 24, 2009 and supports Firefox 3.0 – 3.0.*.
It's recent enough and has very good reviews, so that if force-installed it might work for you.

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I cannot find the txt file, I think it's because I use a french windows os. – asksuperuser Nov 4 '09 at 19:48
Would be great otherwise. – asksuperuser Nov 4 '09 at 19:49
Quel fichier text? – harrymc Nov 4 '09 at 20:47

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