> > - Various browsers register mime types for text/html and so on, > and that works ok. It is out of the scope of this proposal. > ... > > My proposal adds: > > - /usr/bin/x-www-browser alternative formalized in policy > - /usr/bin/www-browser alternative added for non-X browsers > - /usr/bin/sensible-browser, presumably to debianutils, a sample > implementation attached to this message understands BROWSER, > and can use www-browser or x-www-browser as fallback > - programs that want to open an url in a browser can call > sensible-browser or check BROWSER themselves with fallback
I agree. I have an open bug about this on one of my packages and in another package I used a hardcoded list of browsers to try in sequence. Therefore I was about to propose something similar. I propose also that sensible-browser is registered as preferred or only handler for text/html and other url mime types. This can obviously be overriden in personal mailcap files but the debian alternative and the BROWSER variable should be the preferred control it. > In addition, programs should choose a good default web browser if none > is selected by the user or system administrator. This should be done in a centralized way by sensible-browser. Other programs should call only sensible-browser, unless they require some specific browser. If none selects a good default the x-www-browser alternative should do it. > Thus, every program that launches a web browser with an URL must use the > BROWSER environment variable to determine what browser the user wishes > to use. Again, why not just call sensible-browser? A program needing a browser should simply depend on debianutils and www-browser|x-www-browser. Parsing the BROWSER variable and substituting the url value in the proper way in every program seems to me an unnecessary duplication of code. Another utility that I would like to see in debianutils (or some other pkg) is a program to encode/decode an url. This would probably be useful also for the sensible-browser script. -- Massimo Dal Zotto <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
