Hack Skype To Make Phone Calls Directly From Your Web Browser

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Excerpted from the book, "Skype Hacks: Tips & Tools for Cheap, Fun, Innovative Phone Service", by Andrew Sheppard,
published by O'Reilly Media Inc. ISBN 0-596-10189-9. Copyright 2005. Used by permission.
,ch04copy.792 Page 113 Wednesday, November 2, 2005 3:44 PM
HACK
Make Calls from Your Web Browser #43
H A C K Make Calls from Your Web Browser Hack #43
#43 Configure Internet Explorer so that you can make calls directly from a web
page or from the browser toolbar.
Works with: Windows version of Skype.

There are three ways in which you can make calls directly from within a web
browser. The first method uses the URL prefix skype: (note the missing //, as
this method won’t work if you include //) to control Skype from within a
browser. The second method uses the callto:// URL prefix and can be used in
a number of ways to make calls, including from your browser’s address bar
or from a link embedded in a web page. The third method uses the Skype
Toolbar, which is an add-on application for Internet Explorer (and is avail-
able for Microsoft Outlook as well) that you can download at http://www.
skype.com/products/skypetoolbars/.
skype:
You’re probably familiar with URLs such as http://www.oreilly.com/. Now
Skype has added its own type of URL, which looks like this: skype:echo123.
Entering “skype:echo123” in a browser’s address bar will open Skype and
call the Skype sound-test service.
The syntax of the skype: URL is somewhat intimidating, but it is not as diffi-
cult to use as the following syntax diagram might make it seem, as you will
soon see when we try some examples:
Skype URL = "skype:" [targets] ["?" query ] ["#" fragment ]
targets = 1* (target / ";" )

target = identity / PSTN
identity = skypename / alias
skypename = 1*(ALPHA / DIGIT / "." / "," )
skypenames = 1*( skypename / ";")
alias = ... ; see ["TechGroup/DataFormats"]
; unicode chars are in UTF-8 and % encoded
; see RFC3987 uchar mapping
PSTN = "+" (DIGIT / ALPHA ) *(DIGIT / ALPHA / "-" )
; PSTN supports +800-FLOWERS
query = action [ *( "?" term "=" conditon ) ]
term = 1*ALPHA
condition = 1*unserved ; to be clarified by Skype
fragment = 1*unserved ; to be clarified by Skype
Chapter 4, Tweak and Tune Skype | 113
HACK
#43 Make Calls from Your Web Browser
Note that skype: won’t work with speed-dial numbers. For

example, skype:7?call, where 7 is an existing speed-dial num-
ber, won’t work.
skype: is quite powerful—and quite simple in practice—as the examples in

Table 4-1 show. To try these examples, open a browser window and enter
them in the address bar, then press Return.
Table 4-1. Examples of how to use skype: from a web browser
skype: URL What it does

skype:echo123 Calls or chats with Skype’s sound-test service
(it does one or the other depending on what
you have set double-click to do)
skype:echo123?call Calls Skype’s sound-test service
skype:+442075551212?call Calls a regular phone number (you must be a
SkypeOut subscriber for this to work)
skype:echo123?chat Chats with Skype’s sound-test service
skype:skypehackslinux?voicemail Leaves voicemail for Skype user skypehack-
slinux
skype:skypehackslinux?add Adds skypehackslinux to your Contacts list
skype:skypehackslinux?sendfile Opens the File Send dialog to select a file to
send to skypehackslinux
skype:skypehackslinux?userinfo Shows a profile for skypehackslinux
skype:?chat& Opens an existing chat session having the ID
id=2005-09-02T12:00:00TZ specified (YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssTZ or
YYYY-MM-DDZhh:mm:ss)
skype: Focuses Skype (brings the Skype window to
the foreground and gives it focus)
Not only can you enter the URLs in Table 4-1 into a browser’s address bar to
make them work, but you also can embed them in HTML/XHTML, as the fol-
lowing XHTML file, skype.htm, illustrates. If you load this file in a browser
and click on the “Call echo123” link, Skype will open and call the Skype
sound-test service (echo123). However, before you start including skype: links
in all your web pages, you should be aware that they only work for browsers
on machines that run Skype and that know how to handle skype: style URLs.
If a user on a non-Skype machine clicks on a skype: link, it certainly won’t
work and will most likely be treated as an error, as shown in Figure 4-1.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html
PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">

114 | Chapter 4, Tweak and Tune Skype
HACK
Figure 4-1. Entering a skype: style URL or clicking on a skype: link in a web page on a
machine that doesn’t know how to handle skype: URLs will result in an error
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head>
<title>skype: URL</title>
</head>
<body>
<p><a href="skype:echo123?call">
Skype's sound test service (echo123)</a>
</p>
</body>
</html>
You can even enter skype: URLs from the run line (but not from the com-
mand prompt window), and from the Windows Explorer address bar! For
example, select Start ➝ Run..., enter “skype:echo123?chat”, and press Enter
or click OK. A chat window will open, enabling you to chat with Skype’s
sound-test service (echo123). Entering the same URL in the Windows
Explorer address bar will achieve the same result.
callto://
When you enter a web address such as http://www.oreilly.com in your
browser address bar, you are instructing the browser to use the HyperText
Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to access the O’Reilly web site. Similarly, when
you enter the web address callto://echo123, you are in effect telling the
browser to do something with “callto,” and what it does depends on how
your browser is configured. This is because “callto” can be interpreted in
many different ways.
When you install Skype on Windows, you are given the choice to associate
callto:// with Skype. However, if you failed to make that choice during instal-
lation, or if callto:// simply isn’t working properly, you can easily fix it using
one of two methods.
HACK
First, select Skype ➝ Tools ➝ Options... ➝ Advanced, and then under the
Other category check the “Associate Skype with callto: links” checkbox. If
that fails to work for you, you may want to try the second method (a third
method uses the Windows registry, but I don’t recommend it).
Second, from within Windows Explorer (the file browser that comes with
Windows), select Tools ➝ Folder Options... and in the dialog that opens
click on the File Types tab. Scroll down the list of file types until you find
URL: CallTo Protocol; highlight it, and then click on the Advanced button.
In the Edit File Type dialog that opens, highlight the “open” action and click
Edit.... That will open the dialog shown in Figure 4-2. Under “Application
used to perform action,” enter the command C:\Program Files\Skype\Phone\
Skype.exe "/callto:%1" (replacing the path to Skype.exe with your own, if
required). Click OK, and now, any time Internet Explorer (or, indeed, Win-
dows Explorer) encounters callto://, it will pass the request on to Skype.
Figure 4-2. Configuring callto:// so that it uses Skype
After setting up callto:// in this manner, you can use it to make calls in a
number of different ways. The choice is yours.
Internet Explorer (or other browser)
Enter callto://Skypename in the address bar and press Enter or click Go.
Windows Explorer
Enter callto://Skypename in the address bar and press Enter or click Go.
Run…
Select Start ➝ Run..., enter callto://Skypename, and press Enter or click
OK.
HACK
Web-page link
Any web page with a callto://Skypename link embedded in it forms a
hyperlink that you can click on to start a call using Skype. If you want to
include such links in your own web pages, the following XHTML exam-
ple will show you how:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html
PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head>
<title>Skype Callto</title>
</head>
<body>
<p><a href="callto://echo123">Call echo123</a></p>
</body>
</html>
Skypename can be a Skype username or, if you are a SkypeOut subscriber, a

regular telephone number.
Skype Toolbar
This neat add-on for Internet Explorer provides the following useful fea-
tures, all of them available without leaving your browser:
• It recognizes phone numbers and provides a phone icon you can click
on to make a call—even for phone numbers that aren’t callto:// links
(see Figure 4-3).
• It lets you add phone numbers on web pages to your Contacts list.
• It lets you call and chat to existing contacts.
• It lets you change your online status.
• If you’re a SkypeOut subscriber, it displays your remaining credit.
All this functionality is packed into a surprisingly small space on your Internet
Explorer toolbar (see Figure 4-4). And best of all, the Skype Toolbar is free.
HACK
Figure 4-3. Fragment of a web page showing how the Skype Toolbar makes calling easy
from web pages with phone numbers
Figure 4-4. The Skype Toolbar

Hack Skype To Make Phone Calls Directly From Your Web Browser

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3+90%

H A C K Make Calls from Your Web Browser Hack #43

Works with: Windows version of Skype.

targets = 1* (target / ";" )

Chapter 4, Tweak and Tune Skype | 113

Note that skype: won’t work with speed-dial numbers. For

skype: is quite powerful—and quite simple in practice—as the examples in

Table 4-1. Examples of how to use skype: from a web browser

skype: URL What it does

114 | Chapter 4, Tweak and Tune Skype

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">

Chapter 4, Tweak and Tune Skype | 115

Figure 4-2. Configuring callto:// so that it uses Skype

116 | Chapter 4, Tweak and Tune Skype

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">

Skypename can be a Skype username or, if you are a SkypeOut subscriber, a

Chapter 4, Tweak and Tune Skype | 117

Figure 4-4. The Skype Toolbar

118 | Chapter 4, Tweak and Tune Skype

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