Bug#172436: followup on browser proposal
On Tue, 2003-06-17 at 15:40, Bill Allombert wrote:
> Then as long as it is a per-user decision and not a per launcher
> program, I cannot find anything wrong with Joey proposal.
The only problem is that Joey's proposal makes programs with a preferred
browser buggy.
> Users have already a way to choose what browser they want ($BROWSER).
Sure. But we're talking about the default, when that's unset.
> If you want to implement a mechanism so that users don't have to
> set $BROWSER, just setup KDE and GNOME [...]
What defines "KDE" and "GNOME" here? If you're using Konqueror, but
everything else GNOME, are you running KDE or GNOME? What if you're
running the GNOME panel but everything else KDE? What if you're running
both the KDE and GNOME panels? What if you're doing both those, AND
you're using Windowmaker with a dock?
Down this path lies insanity. There is no good default for people who
mix integrated environments. Users who do so will have to pick which
browser they prefer, and configure the environments appropriately.
> Your previous proposal
> | If the BROWSER environment variable is not set, if the program has a
> | preferred browser which is installed, it may fall back to that.
> | Otherwise, it should use /usr/bin/x-www-browser...
>
> will be broken in this regard (GNOME apps under KDE will not launch
> konqueror).
And how exactly are you defining "under KDE"? See above.
It seems to me what you *really* want is an easy way to make random
apps, KDE apps, and GNOME apps all use the same browser. If that's the
case, I can tell you this much: for GNOME, it's as easy as doing:
gconftool-2 -s /desktop/gnome/applications/browser/exec -t string /usr/bin/mybrowser
So all you have to do is write a script which does the above and:
echo "BROWSER=/usr/bin/mybrowser" >> ~/.bashrc
or whatever.
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