On Thu, Sep 03, 2009 at 03:02:47PM -0700, George Davidovich wrote:
> > I use mutt with Cygwin and Windows XP.
> 
> Your problems are unrelated to mutt and would be more appropriate on the
> Cygwin mailing list and/or Firefox forums.  

That did occur to me.

>                                             But out of sympathy and
> because the underlying *nix/Windows questions tend not to fall into any
> single category, I'll try to answer the questions you've already asked and
> beg everyone's indulgence, or at least hope no one notices or complains.
> ;-)

Deeply appreciated :-)

> > Until Firefox release 2.0.0.12, I very happily used the plug-in MIME
> > Edit [1] to associate the extension ".mbox" with a batch file,
> > mbox.bat:
> 
> I'd recommend you start first with investigating one of the
> network.protocol-handler settings made available in about:config.
>  
> >     ============================================================
> >     @echo off
> >     c:\cygwin\bin\bash.exe -i e:\u\config\mbox.sh "%1"
> >     ============================================================
> 
> Ugh.  And if the value passed to mbox.sh is 
> 
>   C:\Documents and Settings\Thomas Baker\Mail\some.mbox
> 
> you expect mutt to do what? 

I'm an old-timer and have banned spaces from any filenames in my
data drive.

> Aside from being ugly and unmanageable. there's generally no reason to
> write DOS batch files or use per-application wrapper scripts as Cygwin
> provides you with more sane alternatives, none of which are plagued by
> the file association nonsense and the lack of a meaningful path that
> Windows traditionally suffers from.  

This is indeed good news.

>                                      Assuming you had the foresight when
> installing Cygwin to add the Windows equivalent of /c/Cygwin/bin and
> ~/bin to your path (Start -> Run -> sysdm.cpl -> Advanced / Environment
> Variables), and you have ~/.Xdefaults configured (irrespective of
> whether you're running X), the following would be preferrable
> 
> rxvt -e mutt -f /path/to/mbox
> rxvt -e bash
> bash -c /path/to/script
> perl ...
> python ...
> 
> Each of the above could be used most anywhere a regular Windows command
> or program is used (the 'Start -> Run' dialog, for example), and if the
> full Windows-style path to the first program called is provided,
> everywhere else (shortcuts, configurable menu or toolbar items,
> registry, etc.).
> 
> As a side note, on Windows, installed programs (third-party utilities,
> GUI programs, etc.) are rarely in your path, so be sure to symlink any
> or all of them into some place like ~/bin, giving them meaningful names
> (preferrably lowercase and without .EXE extensions) in the process.
> 
> The ugly exception to all this harmony occurs when you're mixing Cygwin
> and Windows programs and need to reference a path other than the current
> working directory.  Cygwin programs require Unix paths, and Windows
> programs require Windows paths.  In the registry, DOS files, etc., any
> %1 %2 ... arguments that end up being passed to a Cygwin program must be
> converted to a Unix-style path *before* the program receives it (modulo
> cd tricks); the inverse is also true.  See below for my solution.

Finally, the explanation I have long craved!  Thank you!!  I'm going to
have to digest this in bits.

> > which ran mbox.sh - essentially:
> > 
> >     ============================================================
> >     #!/bin/bash
> >     mutt -F /home/tbaker/u/config/muttrc/muttrc -f "$1"
> >     ============================================================
> >
> > So that when I clicked on a link such as:
> > 
> >     ============================================================
> >     <a href="file://localhost/e:/foo/bar.mbox">Foobar</a>
> >     ============================================================
> > 
> > in Firefox, it would run mutt, opening the mailbox bar.mbox.  It
> > was fantastic!
> 
> If you say so.  ;-)

I will start a separate thread on this, in case others are
interested...

> > With Firefox 3, I can use a "patched" version of [1] (see [2])
> > to associate the extension ".mbox" with mbox.bat, as before --
> > only this time it does not work.  When I click on a link, nothing
> > happens.
> > 
> > This is perhaps ultimately a Firefox issue, having to do perhaps
> > with the way arguments are passed.  
> 
> What I would do is configure mime edit or Firefox to use the "default
> associations".  To create those default associations so that you can
> click away on URLs that reference mbox files (i.e., have an '.mbox'
> extension) or whatever it is you're trying to do, you can use the
> following working but minimal regfile:
> 
> ---------cut here------------------------
> Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
> 
> ; Associate .mbox extension with rxvt -e mutt (without batch files
> ; or wrappers), using run(1) to deal with cmd.exe window issues.
> 
> [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mbox]
> @="mboxfile"
> 
> [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\mboxfile]
> 
> [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\mboxfile\shell]
> 
> [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\mboxfile\shell\open]
> 
> [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\mboxfile\shell\open\command]
> @="c:\\cygwin\\bin\\run.exe bash --login -c \"rxvt -e mutt -f \\\"`cygpath -u 
> '%1'`\\\"\""
> ---------cut here------------------------

*** GASP! ***

> Mind the wordwrap, and save the file with DOS line-endings.
> 
> > I'm raising the issue on this list because I'm thinking there must be
> > people out there who also really want to run mutt from within
> > Firefox...
> 
> You'd probably be wrong. If you don't regularly keep a terminal window
> open or are otherwise typing averse, I'd suggest a Windows desktop
> shortcut configured with 'c:\cygwin\bin\rxvt.exe -e mutt' would be a
> better solution.  Note that while I'm repeatedly advocating rxvt to
> replace cmd.exe (which is slow, clumsy to use and featureless), feel
> free to substitute rxvt with something like mintty.

I always have at least four bash windows open and do most of my work
at the command line.  If you want to guess my age, my favorite language
is awk.

> Don't know if any of the above will solve your immediate problem, but if
> it helps you understand things better, or more importantly, aids in your
> enjoyment of using mutt, then that's A Good Thing.

A very good thing indeed!  This is great stuff!

Gratefully,
Tom

-- 
Tom Baker <tba...@tbaker.de>

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