From: Giuseppe Bilotta Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2010 07:49:09 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCHv2 6/7] web--browse: use (x-)www-browser if available Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <20101204004225.GA15906@burratino> On Sat, Dec 4, 2010 at 1:42 AM, Jonathan Nieder wrote: > Giuseppe Bilotta wrote: > >> I do believe that Debian encourages the use of sensible-browser (that >> does the BROWSER and *www-browser check itself) rather than manually >> going to look at those specifications. > > My impression (by analogy with policy §11.4 "Editors and pagers") is > that one is encouraged to make the default configurable at compile > time and use > >  - first $BROWSER >  - then something desktop-specific >  - then the configured default > > and set that default to www-browser or x-www-browser, depending on > whether your program uses X.  That way, non-Debian systems benefit > from the changes you introduce, too. I'm not entirely sure how non-Debian would benefit from the change at the current state, but I'm willing to present patches for the mechanism offered by other distributions (e.g. does anybody know how RedHad/Fedora sets the preferred browser?) >> An alternative approach would be to get rid of the *www-browser and >> BROWSER patches, and just use xdg-open if it's available. Which again >> raises the issue of how to enforce opening the page in a new tab. > > Yes, in this case that is the ideal (assuming xdg-utils has wide > enough adoption). > > I think xdg-open has just as much a reason as we do to encourage > opening the page in a new tab.  Would it be hard to make that happen? I have no idea. Also, it's sort-of outside the scope of our reach, and we would have to wait for a change in that effect to 'trickle down'. -- Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta