On 13/02/2025 09:19, Greg Wooledge wrote:
On Thu, Feb 13, 2025 at 08:56:47 +0700, Max Nikulin wrote:- *browser alternatives - BROWSER environment - mailcap for text/html
I have realized that I do not have an example of an application that determines https: scheme handler from mailcap (it is for local files). It is XDG "feature" x-scheme-handler/https vs. "xdg-settings get default-web-browser" that actually relies on text/html handler. So it was my extrapolation and mailcap is not used for configuration of default browser.
- XDG configuration
Yes, but mailcap and XDG aren't Debian specific.
Agree. The only debian specific here is that mailcap list of handlers is enriched from XDG .desktop files. However I would consider XDG as the primary source nowadays. It allows applications to avoid debian-specific tools.
Alternatives and the $BROWSER variable (which is what the sensible-browser shell script uses) are Debian specific.
I believed that $BROWSER has got some support outside of Debian: http://www.catb.org/~esr/BROWSER/sensible-browser is just an example of a few applications aware of this environment.
For Debian to introduce *two* such things really surprised me. Maybe I shouldn't be shocked, though. Debian developers are multiple herds worth of cats.
sensible-browser is just an abstraction and convenience wrapper on the top of {x-,gnome-,}www-browser alternatives. I do not think any supported package still relies on gnome-www-browser, so $BROWSER perhaps the only reason that this script still has some value.
/usr/bin/open Debian alternative is a more peculiar beast. It may be set to xdg-open that supports URL schemes and to "see"/run-mailcap that does not (moreover mailcap specs says that handler receives sanitized file name).
Nowadays for GUI applications that do not have native support of XDG handlers I would consider xdg-open rather than sensible-browser.