NAME

pause-and-unpause-firefox - Pause and unpause Firefox alternately

VERSION

This document describes version 0.016 of pause-and-unpause-firefox (from Perl distribution App-FirefoxUtils), released on 2021-09-27.

SYNOPSIS

Usage:

% pause-and-unpause-firefox [--debug|--log-level=level|--quiet|--trace|--verbose] [--format=name|--json] [--(no)naked-res] [--page-result[=program]|--view-result[=program]] [(--periods=duration)+] [(--user=unix::local_uid)+] [--periods-json=json] [--users-json=json]

DESCRIPTION

A modern browser now runs complex web pages and applications. Despite browser's power management feature, these pages/tabs on the browser often still eat considerable CPU cycles even though they only run in the background. Pausing (kill -STOP) the browser processes is a simple and effective way to stop CPU eating on Unix and prolong your laptop battery life. It can be performed whenever you are not using your browser for a little while, e.g. when you are typing on an editor or watching a movie. When you want to use your browser again, simply unpause (kill -CONT) it.

The pause-and-unpause action pause and unpause browser in an alternate fashion, by default every 5 minutes and 30 seconds. This is a compromise to save CPU time most of the time but then give time for web applications in the browser to catch up during the unpause window (e.g. for WhatsApp Web to display new messages and sound notification.) It can be used when you are not browsing but still want to be notified by web applications from time to time.

If you run this routine, it will start pausing and unpausing browser. When you want to use the browser, press Ctrl-C to interrupt the routine. Then after you are done with the browser and want to pause-and-unpause again, you can re-run this routine.

You can customize the periods via the periods option.

OPTIONS

* marks required options.

Main options

--periods-json=s

Pause and unpause times, in seconds (JSON-encoded).

See --periods.

--periods=s@

Pause and unpause times, in seconds.

For example, to pause for 5 minutes, then unpause 10 seconds, then pause for 2 minutes, then unpause for 30 seconds (then repeat the pattern), you can use:

300,10,120,30

Can be specified multiple times.

--user=s@

Kill browser processes that belong to certain user(s) only.

Can be specified multiple times.

--users-json=s

Kill browser processes that belong to certain user(s) only (JSON-encoded).

See --user.

Logging options

--debug

Shortcut for --log-level=debug.

--log-level=s

Set log level.

--quiet

Shortcut for --log-level=error.

--trace

Shortcut for --log-level=trace.

--verbose

Shortcut for --log-level=info.

Output options

--format=s

Choose output format, e.g. json, text.

Default value:

undef
--json

Set output format to json.

--naked-res

When outputing as JSON, strip result envelope.

Default value:

0

By default, when outputing as JSON, the full enveloped result is returned, e.g.:

[200,"OK",[1,2,3],{"func.extra"=>4}]

The reason is so you can get the status (1st element), status message (2nd element) as well as result metadata/extra result (4th element) instead of just the result (3rd element). However, sometimes you want just the result, e.g. when you want to pipe the result for more post-processing. In this case you can use `--naked-res` so you just get:

[1,2,3]
--page-result

Filter output through a pager.

--view-result

View output using a viewer.

Other options

--help, -h, -?

Display help message and exit.

--version, -v

Display program's version and exit.

COMPLETION

This script has shell tab completion capability with support for several shells.

bash

To activate bash completion for this script, put:

complete -C pause-and-unpause-firefox pause-and-unpause-firefox

in your bash startup (e.g. ~/.bashrc). Your next shell session will then recognize tab completion for the command. Or, you can also directly execute the line above in your shell to activate immediately.

It is recommended, however, that you install modules using cpanm-shcompgen which can activate shell completion for scripts immediately.

tcsh

To activate tcsh completion for this script, put:

complete pause-and-unpause-firefox 'p/*/`pause-and-unpause-firefox`/'

in your tcsh startup (e.g. ~/.tcshrc). Your next shell session will then recognize tab completion for the command. Or, you can also directly execute the line above in your shell to activate immediately.

It is also recommended to install shcompgen (see above).

other shells

For fish and zsh, install shcompgen as described above.

HOMEPAGE

Please visit the project's homepage at https://metacpan.org/release/App-FirefoxUtils.

SOURCE

Source repository is at https://github.com/perlancar/perl-App-FirefoxUtils.

AUTHOR

perlancar <perlancar@cpan.org>

CONTRIBUTING

To contribute, you can send patches by email/via RT, or send pull requests on GitHub.

Most of the time, you don't need to build the distribution yourself. You can simply modify the code, then test via:

% prove -l

If you want to build the distribution (e.g. to try to install it locally on your system), you can install Dist::Zilla, Dist::Zilla::PluginBundle::Author::PERLANCAR, and sometimes one or two other Dist::Zilla plugin and/or Pod::Weaver::Plugin. Any additional steps required beyond that are considered a bug and can be reported to me.

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This software is copyright (c) 2021, 2020, 2019 by perlancar <perlancar@cpan.org>.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.

BUGS

Please report any bugs or feature requests on the bugtracker website https://rt.cpan.org/Public/Dist/Display.html?Name=App-FirefoxUtils

When submitting a bug or request, please include a test-file or a patch to an existing test-file that illustrates the bug or desired feature.