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org-roam/doc/roam_protocol.md

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What is Roam protocol?

Org-roam defines two protocols that help boost productivity, by extending org-protocol: the roam-file and roam-ref protocol.

The roam-file protocol

This is a simple protocol that opens the path specified by the file key (e.g. org-protocol://roam-file?file=/tmp/file.org). This is used in the generated graph.

The roam-ref Protocol

This protocol finds or creates a new note with a given ROAM_KEY (see Anatomy):

roam-ref

To use this, create a Firefox bookmarklet as follows:

javascript:location.href =
'org-protocol:/roam-ref?template=r&ref='
+ encodeURIComponent(location.href)
+ '&title='
+ encodeURIComponent(document.title)

where template is the template key for a template in org-roam-ref-capture-templates. More documentation on the templating system can be found here.

These templates should contain a #+ROAM_KEY: {ref} in it.

Org-protocol Setup

The instructions for setting up org-protocol can be found here, but they are reproduced below.

Across all platforms, to enable org-roam-protocol, you have to add the following to your init file:

(require 'org-roam-protocol)

We also need to create a desktop application for emacsclient. The instructions for various platforms are shown below:

Linux

Create a desktop application. I place mine in ~/.local/share/applications/org-protocol.desktop:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Org-Protocol
Exec=emacsclient %u
Icon=emacs-icon
Type=Application
Terminal=false
MimeType=x-scheme-handler/org-protocol

Associate org-protocol:// links with the desktop application by running in your shell:

xdg-mime default org-protocol.desktop x-scheme-handler/org-protocol

To disable the "confirm" prompt in Chrome, you can also make Chrome show a checkbox to tick, so that the Org-Protocol Client app will be used without confirmation. To do this, run in a shell:

sudo mkdir -p /etc/opt/chrome/policies/managed/
sudo tee /etc/opt/chrome/policies/managed/external_protocol_dialog.json >/dev/null <<'EOF'
{
  "ExternalProtocolDialogShowAlwaysOpenCheckbox": true
}
EOF
sudo chmod 644 /etc/opt/chrome/policies/managed/external_protocol_dialog.json

and then restart Chrome (for example, by navigating to chrome://restart) to make the new policy take effect.

See here for more info on the /etc/opt/chrome/policies/managed directory and here for information on the ExternalProtocolDialogShowAlwaysOpenCheckbox policy.

Mac OS

One solution is to use Platypus. Here are the instructions for setting up with Platypus and Chrome:

  1. Install and launch Platypus (with Homebrew):
brew cask install playtpus
  1. Create a script launch_emacs.sh:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
/usr/local/bin/emacsclient --no-wait $1
  1. Create a Platypus app with the following settings:

| Setting | Value | |--------------------------------+---------------------------| | App Name | "OrgProtocol" | | Script Type | "env" · "/usr/bin/env" | | Script Path | "path/to/launch-emacs.sh" | | Interface | None | | Accept dropped items | true | | Remain running after execution | false |

To disable the "confirm" prompt in Chrome, you can also make Chrome show a checkbox to tick, so that the OrgProtocol app will be used without confirmation. To do this, run in a shell:

defaults write com.google.Chrome ExternalProtocolDialogShowAlwaysOpenCheckbox -bool true
Note for Emacs Mac Port

If you're using Emacs Mac Port, it registered its Emacs.app as the default handler for the URL scheme org-protocol. We have to make our OrgProtocol.app the default handler instead (replace org.yourusername.OrgProtocol with your app identifier):

$ defaults write com.apple.LaunchServices/com.apple.launchservices.secure LSHandlers -array-add \
'{"LSHandlerPreferredVersions" = { "LSHandlerRoleAll" = "-"; }; LSHandlerRoleAll = "org.yourusername.OrgProtocol"; LSHandlerURLScheme = "org-protocol";}'

Then restart your computer.