View Source With
Allows Chrome users to open (and in some cases edit) page source with external applications.

Download Latest Version: Add to Chrome

Developer:
Twinsen

Project homepage:
Help page and this thread.

Latest Version: 1.2.5

Date created:
Friday, June 18, 2010

Browser Compatibility:
Chrome 5.0.375.125, 6.0.427.0
Other versions not tested, but it should work in other versions too.
For Chrome 6.0.472.25, use the Context Menu Edition instead.

OS: WinXP, Win7. It would be great to hear feedback if it works on other windows operating systems. OSX does not work.

Features:
* Opens local files in your desired editor.
* Views remote files in your desired editor.
* Can open directories containing a local document in your desired file browser.
* Can open the original url where the local document was saved from.

Changelog:
* 1.2.5 - Supports the double arrow (») in filenames, when it encodes as %C2%BB.
* 1.2.5 - Tmp file has unique name, eg second file is index(2).html if index.html exists.
* 1.2.5 - Anchor tags supported for viewing local files.
* 1.2.4 - Temporary file now ends with .html so syntax highlighting works automatically with notepad++.
* 1.2.3 - View source with (or visit original url) works when the filename contains +.
* 1.2.2 - Supports decoding URL encoded characters, and supports the bullet (•). View source with (or visit original url) works when the filename contains special characters.
* 1.2.1 - "%originalUrl" works for files saved with WinHTTrack (as well as chrome, internet explorer, firefox with SaveWithUrl addon).
* 1.2 - Browse for application button.
* 1.2 - Removed redundant logging (reduce resource usage).
* 1.2 - Export/Import data ability for transferring between computers or chrome installations.
* 1.2 - Can put "%chrome" in editor and a url in parameters to open a url in current chrome instance.
* 1.2 - Can put "%originalUrl" in parameters for the orginal url where the local document was saved from.
* 1.2 - Options page only opens once.
* 1.1 - Fixed viewing source for extension gallery (it disables chrome.tabs.executeScript, so have to use XMLHttpRequest).

Screenshots:


Experimental Edition
If you like the standard edition, you might also like to try the experimental edition that adds a context menu (but that requires running with --enable-experimental-extension-apis).
Browser Compatibility:
Chrome 5.0.375.125, 6.0.427.0
Download Latest Version: Add to Experimental Chrome

Context Menu Edition
The Context Menu edition adds context menu support to the latest dev versions of chrome.
If you use the latest dev versions of chrome, context menus are no longer experimental.
However they no longer work on file:// urls, so using older chrome versions with the experimental api is a superior user experience.
"Sorry, I should have given a heads up about this change. We decided to restrict context menu items to appearing on http/https pages only for now, but are considering widening that in Chrome 7 to allow file:// and chrome-extension:// (at least for an extension's own pages)." -Antony Sargent
To see progress on context menu file:// support, see Issue 51461.
Browser Compatibility:
Chrome 6.0.472.25
Download Latest Version: Add to Dev Chrome

DLL Source Code
Some people might find the source code for the dll useful. It is designed to compile with VS2005. It is based on npsimple, and you can read more about NPAPI at wikipedia. NPAPI plugins are quite powerful, great at integrating third party applications. I also find C++ code easier to unit test, regression test and find fixing bugs easier than in the javascript and html code.
Download: ViewSourceWith_dll_source_1.2.5.zip

Very nice, I like it. One thing though: Any chance you could add an option to browse for the editor? Seems like a simple thing, but I for one would find it very useful.

EDIT: Added, thanks.

can you open sources of ViewSourceWith.dll ?

Please enable a keyboard shortcut to open the source in the default viewer. Ctrl+U comes in so handy versus using my mouse.

Yeah! Finally an extension that correctly retrieves the code for the displayed page, rather than reloading the page from the server. The existing Chrome bug that views source by reloading the page from the server causes great issues when the current page is generated from a form-based script on the server. It tries to reload the page by rerunning the script, but without the form data. This extension appears to do it correctly and retrieves the page as it currently exists in the browser with all submitted form data! Thanks!

One option I'd like to see is an option to have the toolbar access button be a direct link to opening the source in the app selected. Since I always use the same HTML editor to view all pages, I don't really need to have the dropdown selection menu. I would prefer to have the button open the source in my selected editor immediately, and allow configuration of the extension via the regular Chrome Tools->Extensions page.

FYI: I'm using this with Chrome dev channel version 9.0.576 on Win 7 and it appears to work properly under this version.

I just registered here because I couldn't find any extension which would let me start other browsers from toolbar or context menu with a single click. With this extension it would be soo easy to do it, all you would need to do is to just pass the url somehow. I tried firefox %originalUrl but it doesn't work for me. Could you make it work? I think something like firefox %u would be wonderful!

Is there any "View in other browser" extension for Chrome? Before this one I havn't seen any which could open external applications. I thought it's a API restriction, but this extension somehow works. I am sure that a good and polished "View in other browser" would be definately in the official Top 10 extension list if it existed.

Running on Win 7 (64) with success.

However, this extension fails if the local file's URL ends in an anchor tag. For example, if the bookmarked URL is: file:///C:/Users/Jim/Documents/test.html it will work properly. But if you click on a tag in the body of the html, and the URL changes to:
file:///C:/Users/Jim/Documents/test.html#chapter2 this extension will fail because it passes the entire string to the editor, which can't find a filename that includes the anchor.

Also, I agree with the commenter who wanted a keyboard shortcut such as Ctrl-U to start the editor.

Thanks for your work on this extension that fixes a shortcoming in Chrome.

Jimmy Neutron

Suggestion: make an option (or default?) to not have new source files overwrite existing files in temp folder and choose a unique name. If I want to compare to home.aspx files. Here's what currently happens:
- I use this addin to view source of the first page
- That creates a file at C:\my\user\folder\temp\home.aspx.html and opens it in my editor
- I use this addin to view source of the second page
- That overwrites the file at C:\my\user\folder\temp\home.aspx.html and opens it in my editor

It would be nice if the second file was just named home.aspx(2).html or some other unique name.

Thanks,

SI

I have added Open in IE and Open in Firefox options. Here are the settings I used for IE:
- Path: C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe
- Description: Open in IE
- Parameter: %url
- Tooltip: IE

It's similar for FF and works pretty nicely.

Tried it with OSX: installed, but when trying to configure the OSX text editor, i can't use the BROWSE button. And i was unable to make it work by just typing the app name in the window. So couldn't get it to work...