Python. How to print text to console as hyperlink?

Question

I'm working on a console application. My application uses urwid lib. In some cases, I need to show very long hyperlinks as short text inside table columns. I want to open links in the browser when I click on the text inside the column.

So, my question is:

It is possible to print text as a hyperlink to the console?

Can you provide a small example of how to print text as a hyperlink using python?

Answer 1

Yes, using some tools, like gNewt or Curses, you could create a button and 'on click' do an action (like open a browser to a given url).

gNewt : http://gnewt.sourceforge.net/

nCurses : https://docs.python.org/3.7/library/curses.html

Otherwise, it's the terminal application that will manage the text you give it, and if it doesn't implement uri's recognition your program won't work as you'd like.

Answer 2

No, some consoles do recognize urls and convert them to a clickable hyperlink. All you can do is make it easy to recognize for console applications by putting a http:// in your url.

Also see How does bash recognize a link?

Answer 3

A bit late, but there totally is a way to do that now, without curses or anything, just pure text and collaboration from your terminal emulator.

def link(uri, label=None):
    if label is None: 
        label = uri
    parameters = ''

    # OSC 8 ; params ; URI ST <name> OSC 8 ;; ST 
    escape_mask = '\033]8;{};{}\033\\{}\033]8;;\033\\'

    return escape_mask.format(parameters, uri, label)

Call that function with link('https://example.com/') to get a simple, clickable link, or link('https://example.com/', 'example') for a custom label.

Note that links are faintly underlined in your terminal, and not all of them support the feature.