pause-and-unpause-firefox - Pause and unpause Firefox alternately
This document describes version 0.018 of pause-and-unpause-firefox (from Perl distribution App-FirefoxUtils), released on 2022-07-24.
% pause-and-unpause-firefox [--debug|--log-level=level|--quiet|--trace|--verbose] [--format=name|--json] [--(no)naked-res] [--page-result[=program]|--view-result[=program]] [(--period=duration)+|--periods-json=json] [(--user=unix::uid::exists)+|--users-json=json]
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.
pause-and-unpause
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.
periods
* marks required options.
*
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.
Pause and unpause times, in seconds (JSON-encoded).
See --period.
--period
Kill browser processes that belong to certain user(s) only.
Kill browser processes that belong to certain user(s) only (JSON-encoded).
See --user.
--user
Shortcut for --log-level=debug.
Set log level.
By default, these log levels are available (in order of increasing level of importance, from least important to most): trace, debug, info, warn/warning, error, fatal. By default, the level is usually set to warn, which means that log statements with level info and less important levels will not be shown. To increase verbosity, choose info, debug, or fatal.
trace
debug
info
warn
warning
error
fatal
For more details on log level and logging, as well as how new logging levels can be defined or existing ones modified, see Log::ger.
Shortcut for --log-level=error.
Shortcut for --log-level=trace.
Shortcut for --log-level=info.
Choose output format, e.g. json, text.
Default value:
undef
Output can be displayed in multiple formats, and a suitable default format is chosen depending on the application and/or whether output destination is interactive terminal (i.e. whether output is piped). This option specifically chooses an output format.
Set output format to json.
When outputing as JSON, strip result envelope.
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:
--naked-res
[1,2,3]
Filter output through a pager.
This option will pipe the output to a specified pager program. If pager program is not specified, a suitable default e.g. less is chosen.
less
View output using a viewer.
This option will first save the output to a temporary file, then open a viewer program to view the temporary file. If a viewer program is not chosen, a suitable default, e.g. the browser, is chosen.
Display help message and exit.
Display program's version and exit.
This script has shell tab completion capability with support for several shells.
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.
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).
For fish and zsh, install shcompgen as described above.
Please visit the project's homepage at https://metacpan.org/release/App-FirefoxUtils.
Source repository is at https://github.com/perlancar/perl-App-FirefoxUtils.
perlancar <perlancar@cpan.org>
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.
This software is copyright (c) 2022, 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.
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.
To install App::FirefoxUtils, copy and paste the appropriate command in to your terminal.
cpanm
cpanm App::FirefoxUtils
CPAN shell
perl -MCPAN -e shell install App::FirefoxUtils
For more information on module installation, please visit the detailed CPAN module installation guide.