Welcome to Linklever

This guide exists to help you get started with Linklever.

You can jump to where you like with the navigation on the left or start with Setup.

Linklever Setup

Here are the steps to set up Linklever.

Installation

To install Linklever, download the installer for your operating system and processor.

Then, run the installer and follow the prompts.

Windows

The installer is a self-contained exe.

macOS

The installer is apkg file.

macOS Admin Privileges

The macOS installer gives the option to install for the user or for the system.

  • When installed for the user, the installer does not require admin privileges.
  • When installed for the system, the installer requires admin privileges.

The app itself does not require admin privileges.

Linux

The app is distributed as an AppImage. No installation is necessary, but you must make the image executable.

Making the AppImage executable

In your terminal, navigate to the file and run chmod +x ./Linklever.AppImage.

Or you can use your desktop environment. On Gnome, right click the file, click Properties, and click Executable as Program.

Now you can run the program by running ./Linklever.AppImage in your terminal or by double-clicking it in your desktop environment.

Next

Add a license.

Add a License

If you have not yet, please purchase a license.

You may evaluate Linklever without a license. There is no evaluation period or restriction, but Linklever will remind you periodically to buy a license.

Shortly after your payment succeeds, you will receive an email with your license file Linklever-Key-your-email.llkey. For assistance, please reach out any time to [email protected]. We may take up to one business day to respond.

Download the file and remember where you saved it.

To add the license, follow the instructions for the Settings tab.

Next

Set Linklever as your default browser.

Set Default Browser

To set Linklever as the default browser, follow the Settings tab instructions.

Next

Enjoy the app! Please reach out any time to [email protected]. We may take up to one business day to respond.

Overview

The app has an address bar and below that some tabs.

Address bar

When you enter a URL and click the Launch button or press Enter, the app will match the URL against you rules and open the matching browser.

Tabs

The tabs are:

Rules

The Rules tab lists rules. Rules tell Linklever which browser to open.

When opening a link, Linklever starts at the top of the rule list. It moves down and selects the first matching rule. If there are multiple matches, it selects the first match. If there is no match, it selects the catch-all rule, which matches any URL.

Anatomy of a Rule

Each rule consists of a pattern, a type, a browser, and a profile.

Pattern

Patterns are regular expressions. For help creating patterns, follow our Pattern Guide.

Type

The type specifies whether to select a browser based on the URL or the app.

Url: Linklever chooses a browser by matching the URL.

App: Linklever chooses a browser by matching the name of the app that has focus when link is clicked.

On macOS, support for the App rule type requires that Linklever remain running.

On Linux, support for the App rule type has some dependencies.

For example, if Pattern is .*example.com.*$, Type is Url, and Browser is Safari, then all links for example.com will open in Safari.

For example, if Pattern is Microsoft Teams, Type is App, and Profile is Microsoft Edge, then all links opened in Microsoft Teams will open in Edge.

Browser

This is the browser that Linklever will open.

The available browsers are listed in the drop-down menu.

Profile

This is the browser profile that Linklever will open for the given URL.

The available profiles for the selected browser are listed in the drop-down menu.

Rule operations

Add

To add a rule, fill in the fields at the bottom of the app, and click the add button.

Example URL rule:

Example app rule:

Delete

To delete a rule, select it, and click the delete button.

Promote

To promote a rule (move it up the list), select it, and click the promote button.

It is not possible to promote the catch-all rule.

Demote

To demote a rule (move it down the list), select it, and click the demote button.

Saving

Changes are saved immediately on edit; there is no save button.

Browsers

The Browsers tab lists Browsers and browser profiles. Linklever scans your system and lists the results here and any you add.

Structure

Command is the app, executable, or script Linklever will run.

It should be the path to the .exe (Windows), .app (macOS), executable file (Linux), or script (e.g. .ps1, .sh)

Name can be any text. It may appear in notifications, so it's best to keep it short.

Browser operations

Scan

To re-scan for browsers and profiles, click the Refresh button.

Add

To add a browser, fill in the fields at the bottom of the app, then click the add button.

Delete

To delete a browser from the list, select it, and click the delete button.

This does not remove the browser from your system

Saving

Changes are saved immediately on edit; there is no save button.

Filters

The Filters tab specifies transforms to URLs before sending them on the rules engine. The rules engine then matches on the transformed URL and launches a browser.

When opening a link, Linklever starts at the top of the filter list. It moves down and selects the first matching filter. If there are multiple matches, it selects the first match. If there is no match, then the raw URL is passed along to the rules engine.

For example, if a filter exists with pattern .*teams\.cdn\.office\.net.*url=([^&]+).* and template unescape($1), then Linklever won't launch the URL statics.teams.cdn.office.net/evergreen-assets/safelinks/1/atp-safelinks.html?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexample.com. Instead it will launch https://example.com.

Anatomy of a Filter

Each filter consists of a name, a pattern, and a template.

Name

The name can be any text. It will appear in notifications, so it's best to keep it short.

Pattern

Patterns are regular expressions. For help creating patterns, follow our Pattern Guide.

Template

A template selects and transforms text from the raw URL.

In the above example, the template unescape($1) extracts the text https%3A%2F%2Fexample.com and URL unescapes it to https://example.com. Here, $1 refers to the first capture group, i.e. everything matched in the first parenthesis ( ... ), which is in this case everything after url=. The macro unescape converts URL-escaped strings like https%3A%2F%2Fexample.com to normal URLs like https://example.com.

Filter operations

Add

To add a filter, fill in the fields at the bottom of the app, and click the add button.

The example below, the pattern (.*)[&?]utm_source=[^&]+.* and template $1 remove the utm_source tracking parameter. For example, https://example.com?product=123&utm_source=google becomes https://example.com?product=123

Delete

To delete a filter, select it, and click the delete button.

Promote

To promote a filter (move it up the list), select it, and click the promote button.

It is not possible to promote the catch-all filter.

Demote

To demote a filter (move it down the list), select it, and click the demote button.

Saving

Changes are saved immediately on edit; there is no save button.

Settings

The Settings tab lets you set or unset Linklever as the default browser, set dark or light mode, and set the license file.

Default Browser

To set or unset Linklever as the default browser, click the switch next to Is Default Browser

The steps that follow depend on your operating system.

macOS

When you click the switch, macOS shows a dialog to confirm the change. Click Use "Linklever"

Windows

Linklever opens the Default Apps page in Settings and asks you to set the default browser.

After you click the Set default button, you should see that Linklever is assigned to the http and https protocols.

Linux

Linklever uses xdg-settings to set itself as the default browser. On GNOME 46, no confirmation is required. The change is confirmed under Settings > Default Apps

Appearance

Dark Mode

To switch between dark and light mode, click the switch next to Dark Mode.

License

This area concerns licensing of Linklever.

License operations

Status

The status shows whether the license file is valid or not.

Add

To add a license, click the add button.

In the dialog that appears, select a license and click Open.

Get

To buy a license, click the buy link. A web page will open to complete the purchase. For more details, follow the Get a License instructions.

Appendix

Patterns

This page will help you add patterns in Linklever.

In Linklever, patterns are regular expressions (regexes), but you don't have to understand them to use Linklever. Instead, you can customize the examples here, or you can ask an AI like ChatGPT to create them for you.

Examples

You can customize these examples for your needs.

PatternFunctionExplanation
^https://example\.com$Exact MatchMatch a URL, e.g. https://example.com
^https://subdomain\.example\.com$Exact Subdomain MatchMatch a URL with a subdomain, e.g. https://subdomain.example.com
^https://example\.com\/path$Exact Path MatchMatch a URL with a path, e.g. https://example.com/path
^(https?:\/\/)?(www\.)?example\.com(\/path)?$Optional protocol, www, and pathMatch https://www.example.com/path but https, http, www, and /path are optional.

Asking an AI

AI tools like ChatGPT are effective at generating URL pattern regexes.

Example Prompt:

Write a regex that matches all the common variations of a domain.

  • https://example.com
  • http://example.com
  • www.example.com
  • example.com

Response:

Here's a regex that matches the variations of the domain example.com as specified:

^(https?:\/\/)?(www\.)?example\.com$

Explanation:

  1. ^ - Asserts the start of the string.
  2. (https?:\/\/)? - Matches http:// or https://, optionally (the ? makes it optional).
  3. (www\.)? - Matches www. optionally.
  4. example\.com - Matches the domain example.com.
  5. $ - Asserts the end of the string.

Pattern quick facts

  • ^ means "match a URL starting with", e.g. ^example.com matches example.com but not www.example.com
  • $ means "match a URL ending with", e.g. example.co$ matches example.co but not example.co.uk
  • Use \. to match a dot, e.g. example\.com matches example.com
  • Use \/ to match a forward-slash, e.g. example\.com\/path matches example.com/path
  • Use . to match any character e.g. example.com matches example.com and exampleZcom.
  • Use * to match 0 or more, e.g. a*ok matches aok and ok
  • Use + to match 1 or more, e.g. a+ok matches aok but not ok
  • Use ? to make something optional, e.g. (https)? matches https:// and http://
  • Use () to make a group, e.g. (www\.)?example\.com matches www.example.com and example.com
  • Use [] to match multiple values, e.g. ([\w\d]+)?\.?example\.com matches subdomain1.example.com etc subdomain2.example.com
  • Use \w to match any letter, a to z or A to Z.
  • Use \d to match any number, 0 to 9.

Source Apps

A source app is the app that is active, i.e. has focus, when a link is clicked.

Support for source apps may require some extra setup depending on your operating system.

Windows

No extra setup is required on Windows.

macOS

On macOS, in order to detect which app has foreground, the app must remain running. Is not necessary to leave the app running on Windows or Linux.

When you aren't using the Linklever window, you can minimize it.

Linux

On Linux, detecting source apps has some prerequisites.

  1. Only the Wayland display server protocol is supported.
  2. Only the GNOME or KDE Plasma desktop environments are supported.

GNOME

On GNOME, to determine the active app, Linklever runs the command 

gdbus call --session --dest org.gnome.Shell \
           --object-path /org/gnome/Shell/Extensions/Windows \
           --method org.gnome.Shell.Extensions.Windows.List

Therefore Linklever requires the window-calls GNOME extension to be installed.

Installing GNOME extensions requires the GNOME native browser connector and the GNOME browser extension.

  1. Install the GNOME native browser connector.
    • For example: sudo apt install chrome-gnome-shell.
  2. Install the GNOME browser extension.
  3. Install the window-calls GNOME extension.
    • Click install on the extension page
    • Or from a shell: xdg-open gnome-extensions://window-calls%40domandoman.xyz?action=install

KDE Plasma

On KDE Plasma, to determine the active app, Linklever runs the command

kdotool getwindowclassname $(kdotool getactivewindow)

Therefore Linklever requires kdotool to be installed.

  • On Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt install kdotool
  • On Fedora: sudo dnf install kdotool