[SOLVED] rc.xml: & ampersand and # hash break Openbox keybinding URL's

Question

I'm trying to get a keybinding to work in Openbox's rc.xml, so that when I press W-XF86Mail it opens a Google documents spreadsheet.
rc.xml:
<keybind key="W-XF86Mail">
<action name="Execute">
<execute>firefox https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AjuCrdYnTCyacGNfX0FuRzBFUnBOalNxS0VXYjJhVUE&hl=en#gid=3</execute>
</action>
</keybind>
Other keybindings in the same file work fine. But when I reconfigure Openbox I get an error message "One or more XML syntax errors were found while parsing the Openbox configutation files...". After reconfiguration, I press W-XF86Mail and it starts Firefox but opens the wrong URL - the first bit is correct but the last bit reads ...key=0AjuCrdYnTCyacGNfX0FuRzBFUnBOalNxS0VXYjJhVUE=en instead. As you can see the last bit &hl=en#gid=3 is missing. If I delete the & ampersand then the hash # character seems to cause the same problem. Is there a problem with using the ampersand  or hash characters in keybindings?
Last edited by dameunmate (2010-09-04 14:24:50)

Answer 1

thanks for the tips, I've now got the right page to load when I type the command into the urxvt terminal. But it still doesn't work with Openbox keybindings, I edit and reconfigure but press the keys and get no response at all. I've checked and the same keybinding will successfully open other programs and webpages. Here's the keybinding in /home/username/.config/openbox/rc.xml:
<keybind key="W-XF86Mail">
<action name="Execute">
<execute>urxvt -e gdocspread</execute>
</action>
</keybind>
I've also tried <execute>urxvt -c gdocspread</execute> and simply <execute>gdocspread</execute> to no avail. However changing the same keybinding command to <execute>urxvt</execute> does open urxvt successfuly.
So the keybinding will open urxvt, and if I manually open a urxvt terminal and type gdocspread firefox starts on my desired web page. So what's the missing link?
NB: About the ampersand:
For some reason even from the terminal it won't work with the ampersand, but I discovered that I can leave that out as it just defines the language. However for future reference it would be useful to know how to put an ampersand in a URL. This is the code that does load the correct page:
home/username/.bashrc
# Check for an interactive session
[ -z "$PS1" ] && return
alias ls='ls --color=auto'
PS1='[\u@\h \W]\$ '
gdocspread() {
firefox https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AjuCrdYnTCyacGNfX0FuRzBFUnBOalNxS0VXYjJhVUE&amp;hl=en#gid=3
Interestingly the URL etc...key=0AjuCrdYnTCyacGNfX0FuRzBFUnBOalNxS0VXYjJhVUE&hl=en#gid=3 and the URL etc...key=0AjuCrdYnTCyacGNfX0FuRzBFUnBOalNxS0VXYjJhVUE&amp;hl=en#gid=3 won't load, the URL gets cut off at the ampersand.
Furthermore it's interesting to note that in the above configuration file /home/username/.bashrc only the ampersand causes problems, but in /home/username/openbox/rc.xml both the ampersand and the hash characters cause the URL to be cut off.