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How can I make Emacs function 'browse-url-at-point work on a tablet running Android?

Following advice I found at "http://endlessparentheses.com/running-emacs-on-android.html" I installed 'Termux and 'Hacker's keyboard on my Android tablet, started 'Termux and ran:

apt update
apt install emacs

I then started emacs. In the Emacs scratch buffer I wrote "http://www.google.com" and invoked 'browse-url-at-point. It said "No usable browser found".

I did some investigating of this subject on the Internet, but so far have found nothing helpful.

The table is a HP Touchpad running Android 5.1.1 via CyanogenMod version "12.1-20160109-SNAPSOT-jcsullins-tenderloin.

Added after reading the comment by Jack, and further investigation:

For a while I thought that turning on root access on my HP Touchpad (running CyogenMod Android 12) and using command "su" was necessary, but someone referred me to "termux-open-url" and its source code suggested to me to add "--user 0" to what Jack suggested. My first test was to run the command

am start --user 0 -a android.intent.action.VIEW -d http://www.google.com

in the Termux terminal window. That worked. I then started up Emacs inside Termux and issued the same command inside the shell buffer. That also worked.

Alan Wehmann
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2 Answers2

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Based on this adding something like this to your config should work:

(advice-add 'browse-url-default-browser :override
            (lambda (url &rest args)
              (start-process-shell-command "open-url" nil (concat "am start -a android.intent.action.VIEW -d " url))))
Community
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Jack
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  • A revision of my question explains that adding "--user 0" to the command that Jack suggests is a way of avoiding having to enable root access and use of command "su"--as I had earlier thought. – Alan Wehmann Sep 07 '16 at 19:50
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 (setq browse-url-browser-function 'browse-url-xdg-open)

seems to make things open up in the right browser for me.

Sacha Chua
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