Auto refesh browser in linux

Automatically refresh the browser by sending an F5 keystroke at regular intervals

Why, What for…

The purpose of this project is to automatically refresh a web page displayed on a Linux machine at regular intervals. This can be useful in situations where the website being displayed is frequently updated, or in case the internet connection is lost and needs to be re-established. By using the Brave browser and Linux Mint operating system, we will show you how to set up a script that sends an F5 keystroke to refresh the browser at specific intervals.

This technique can be particularly useful in situations where a website is displaying real-time data, such as stock prices or weather updates. It can also be useful in cases where a website is used as a dashboard and needs to be kept up-to-date at all times. Additionally, it can be useful in situations where the internet connection is unreliable and the website needs to be frequently refreshed to ensure it is still accessible. By automating the refresh process, this technique can save time and effort for users who would otherwise have to manually refresh the page.

Setup

Install xdotool

1. I installed a tool called xdotool that is supposed to allow to send keystrokes to a window:
   

apt install --yes xdotool

Write a script

1. I Wrote this script so that it would cycle whether it runs Firefox, chrome or brave and send F5 to refresh every 2 minutes.
   We called the script refreshBrowser.sh and placed in a folder we created on the users home called /bin/
   here is the scrpt:
   

#!/usr/bin/bash

browsers=("chrome" "brave" "firefox")

/usr/bin/sleep 30s &&

echo This script auto refreshes the browser every 2 minutes
echo You can stop the script with ctrl+c
echo or by just closing this window.

while true; do
    for browser in "${browsers[@]}"
    do
        browser_window_id=$(xdotool search --onlyvisible --name $browser)
        if [ -n "$browser_window_id" ]; then
            xdotool windowactivate $browser_window_id
            xdotool key F5
            sleep 2m
        fi
    done
done

Schedule the script to run on startup

1. Schedule gnome-terminal to run the script on Startup:
   The nice thing is that if you want the command to stop, you can just close the terminal screen or press CTRL+C
   
   1. Open the “Startup Applications” utility by searching for it in the menu or by running the command “cinnamon-settings startup” in the terminal.
   2. Click on the “+” button to add a new startup application.
   3. Fill in the Name and Comment fields with a name and a brief description of the command you want to run.
   4. In the Command field, enter the following command /usr/bin/gnome-terminal --command="~/bin/refreshBrowser.sh"
   5. Increase the delay before startup by around 3 seconds
   6. Click on the Add button to add the command to the startup applications list.
   7. The next time you log in, the gnome-terminal will open and run the command automatically. And the nice thing is that if you want the command to stop, you can just close the terminal screen or press CTRL+C

Sources

• https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/87831/how-to-send-keystrokes-f5-from-terminal-to-a-gui-program
• The invaluable help of ChatGPT