Launch Glance on Force Click

[tui2019]

Force Click is a feature on Apple's touchpads which lets you press with more force to access different features. Right now, when force pressing on a link, mac os just opens it's dictionary thing. It would be nice if zen browser could handle that and open the "glance" on that link. Similar feature already exists in safari - it opens preview for the link you press.

[SilverEzhik]

Little workaround for this using Hammerspoon:

zen = {}
zen.bundleID = "app.zen-browser.zen"

local glanceModifiers = { "alt" } -- replace with whatever modifier you use for triggering glance on a click

local zenForceTapHappening = false
zen.forceTap = hs.eventtap.new({ hs.eventtap.event.types.gesture },
    function(e)
        local specificType = e:getType(true)
        if specificType == hs.eventtap.event.types.pressure then
            local touch = e:getTouchDetails()
            if touch and touch.stage == 2 and not zenForceTapHappening then
                local pos = hs.mouse.absolutePosition()
                local el = hs.axuielement.systemElementAtPosition(pos)
                local app = el.AXWindow:asHSWindow():application()
                if app and app:bundleID() == zen.bundleID then
                    zenForceTapHappening = true
                    hs.eventtap.event.newMouseEvent(hs.eventtap.event.types.leftMouseDown, pos, glanceModifiers):post()
                    hs.eventtap.event.newMouseEvent(hs.eventtap.event.types.leftMouseUp, pos, glanceModifiers):post()
                    return true
                end
            elseif zenForceTapHappening then
                if touch.stage ~= 2 then
                    zenForceTapHappening = false
                end
                return true
            end
        end
    end):start()

[bob301]

Thank you for this. It worked for me for a little while, and then started throwing errors around AXWindow being null. I haven't written Lua before and I'd never heard of Hammerspoon, so hopefully there's nothing too egregious in the version below. This version walks up the accessibility tree, when the element isn't an AXWindow. I don't know why that sometimes happened, but it was pretty consistently broken for me. This version has worked for a couple of days now. It'll try a few ways to identify the zen window, so it can intercept the event and force using glance.

Again, thank you very much for the script and the suggestion, this has made Zen work exactly the way I want it to. If someone else has the same issue I did, this updated script may help.

zen = {}
zen.bundleID = "app.zen-browser.zen"

local glanceModifiers = { "cmd" } -- replace with whatever modifier you use for triggering glance on a click
local zenForceTapHappening = false

local function findWindowElement(el)
    if not el then return nil end
    local ok, role = pcall(function() return el:attributeValue("AXRole") end)
    if ok and role == "AXWindow" then return el end

    ok, parent = pcall(function() return el:attributeValue("AXParent") end)
    if ok and parent then
        return findWindowElement(parent)
    end

    ok, parent = pcall(function() return el:parent() end)
    if ok and parent then
        return findWindowElement(parent)
    end

    return nil
end

zen.forceTap = hs.eventtap.new({ hs.eventtap.event.types.gesture }, function(e)
    local specificType = e:getType(true)
    if specificType ~= hs.eventtap.event.types.pressure then return end

    local touch = e:getTouchDetails()
    if not touch then return end

    if touch.stage == 2 and not zenForceTapHappening then
        local pos = hs.mouse.absolutePosition()
        local el = hs.axuielement.systemElementAtPosition(pos.x, pos.y)
        if not el then return end


        local axWin = nil
        -- try direct field, attribute, or walk up the hierarchy
        local ok, tmp = pcall(function() return el.AXWindow end)
        if ok and tmp then axWin = tmp end

        if not axWin then
            ok, tmp = pcall(function() return el:attributeValue("AXWindow") end)
            if ok and tmp then axWin = tmp end
        end

        if not axWin then
            axWin = findWindowElement(el)
        end

        if not axWin then return end

        local ok2, hswin = pcall(function() return axWin:asHSWindow() end)
        if not ok2 or not hswin then return end

        local app = hswin:application()
        if app and app:bundleID() == zen.bundleID then
            zenForceTapHappening = true
            hs.eventtap.event.newMouseEvent(hs.eventtap.event.types.leftMouseDown, pos, glanceModifiers):post()
            hs.eventtap.event.newMouseEvent(hs.eventtap.event.types.leftMouseUp, pos, glanceModifiers):post()
            return true
        end

    elseif zenForceTapHappening then
        if touch.stage ~= 2 then
            zenForceTapHappening = false
        end
        return true
    end
end):start()

[ylorn]

Second this. Force click and Glance is a natural match on macOS

[artogahr]

Third this :) Would be a great improvement to user experience to be able to quickly open links in a glance without having to right click or using an extra keyboard key.

Edit: seems like a duplicate of #4986 btw