Plugin API

Custom Protocol Schemes

Zeal supports for dash: and dash-plugin: protocol schemes to be compatible with most of the Dash plugins.

dash: Protocol

This is a simple protocol that only provides a way to specify query string.

Format: dash://{query}.

Query parameters:

• query: search query string. Special characters must be percent-encoded. Example: http%20request.

dash-plugin: Protocol

A more comprehensive protocol, which offers extra flexibility.

Format: dash-plugin://keys={keywords}&query={query}[&prevent_activation].

Query parameters:

• keys: list of docsets to perform search in. Example: keys=go,http.
• query: search query string. Special characters must be percent-encoded. Example: http%20request.
• prevent_activation (optional): prevents Zeal from stealing focus from the currently running application.

Registration

Usually, protocol handlers are registered when Zeal is installed.

On Windows, it is also possible to perform registration manually by invoking zeal.exe --register. Similarly, registration can be removed with zeal.exe --unregister command.

Some plugins offer integration with portable version. For that they simply pass the whole query URI to Zeal as a command line argument:

zeal "dash://QString"

Further Reading

• Dash Plugin Development