GNU bug report logs - #18986
Design bug in browse-url.el: browse-url-can-use-xdg-open's logic uses overly strict assumption

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From: help-debbugs <at> gnu.org (GNU bug Tracking System)
To: "Jan D." <jan.h.d <at> swipnet.se>
Cc: tracker <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#18986: closed (Design bug in browse-url.el: browse-url-can-use-xdg-open's
 logic uses overly strict assumption)
Date: Sat, 08 Nov 2014 17:20:03 +0000

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Your message dated Sat, 8 Nov 2014 18:19:37 +0100
with message-id <E1A681AD-2DC5-4143-B7ED-F179A8856D6B <at> swipnet.se>
and subject line Re: bug#18986: Design bug in browse-url.el: browse-url-can-use-xdg-open's logic uses overly strict assumption
has caused the debbugs.gnu.org bug report #18986,
regarding Design bug in browse-url.el: browse-url-can-use-xdg-open's logic uses overly strict assumption
to be marked as done.

(If you believe you have received this mail in error, please contact
help-debbugs <at> gnu.org.)


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From: "Florian v. Savigny" <florian <at> fsavigny.de>
To: bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org
Cc: Denis Howe <dbh <at> doc.ic.ac.uk>, emacs-devel <at> gnu.org
Subject: Design bug in browse-url.el:
 browse-url-can-use-xdg-open's logic uses overly strict assumption
Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2014 12:04:52 +0100

Dear maintainers/authors,

browse-url-can-use-xdg-open returns t only if emacs is running under one of the desktop environments, i.e. Gnome, KDE, Xfce4 or LXDE.

I do not know the deeper reasons for this, but from experience, I can confirm that this running under a desktop environment may be sufficient, but is not necessary: My emacs is running under fvwm, and xdg-open works fine. (You have to know how to configure it, but that is no dark magic either; I do it via ~/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list.)

My guess is that it would be sufficient to check for the existence of the xdg-open binary. The condition of one of the desktop environments being run is somewhat annoying, because when not fulfilled, it causes browse-url-default-browser, which is often employed to open a URL, to default to mozilla (or whatever follows in its hardcoded list), which may not be exactly what you want. Effectively, it makes it impossible to specify your favourite browser without some kludgy hack.

I have included some of the information produced by M-x report-emacs-bug, but since I am fairly certain that most of it is irrelevant, I have left it out:


In GNU Emacs 24.4.1 (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.14.3)
 of 2014-10-21 on bitzer.hoetzel.info
Windowing system distributor `The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.11601000
Configured using:
 `configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --libexecdir=/usr/lib
 --localstatedir=/var --with-x-toolkit=gtk3 --with-xft
 'CFLAGS=-march=x86-64 -mtune=generic -O2 -pipe
 -fstack-protector-strong --param=ssp-buffer-size=4'
 CPPFLAGS=-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2
 LDFLAGS=-Wl,-O1,--sort-common,--as-needed,-z,relro'

Important settings:
  value of $LANG: de_DE.ISO-8859-1
  locale-coding-system: iso-latin-1-unix


Best regards,

Florian v. Savigny

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From: "Jan D." <jan.h.d <at> swipnet.se>
To: "Florian v. Savigny" <florian <at> fsavigny.de>
Cc: Denis Howe <dbh <at> doc.ic.ac.uk>, 18986-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org,
 emacs development <emacs-devel <at> gnu.org>
Subject: Re: bug#18986: Design bug in browse-url.el:
 browse-url-can-use-xdg-open's logic uses overly strict assumption
Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2014 18:19:37 +0100

Hello.

It used to be that xdg-open just called the desktop version, i.e. gnome-open, kde-open and so on.  It is not sufficient that xdg-open exists for the most part.  We can't cater for every window manager out there, we have to go by the majority.  If you can make xdg-open work, then making Emacs use it should be easy.

	Jan D.

> 7 nov 2014 kl. 12:04 skrev Florian v. Savigny <florian <at> fsavigny.de>:
> 
> 
> 
> Dear maintainers/authors,
> 
> browse-url-can-use-xdg-open returns t only if emacs is running under one of the desktop environments, i.e. Gnome, KDE, Xfce4 or LXDE.
> 
> I do not know the deeper reasons for this, but from experience, I can confirm that this running under a desktop environment may be sufficient, but is not necessary: My emacs is running under fvwm, and xdg-open works fine. (You have to know how to configure it, but that is no dark magic either; I do it via ~/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list.)
> 
> My guess is that it would be sufficient to check for the existence of the xdg-open binary. The condition of one of the desktop environments being run is somewhat annoying, because when not fulfilled, it causes browse-url-default-browser, which is often employed to open a URL, to default to mozilla (or whatever follows in its hardcoded list), which may not be exactly what you want. Effectively, it makes it impossible to specify your favourite browser without some kludgy hack.
> 
> I have included some of the information produced by M-x report-emacs-bug, but since I am fairly certain that most of it is irrelevant, I have left it out:
> 
> 
> In GNU Emacs 24.4.1 (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.14.3)
> of 2014-10-21 on bitzer.hoetzel.info
> Windowing system distributor `The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.11601000
> Configured using:
> `configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --libexecdir=/usr/lib
> --localstatedir=/var --with-x-toolkit=gtk3 --with-xft
> 'CFLAGS=-march=x86-64 -mtune=generic -O2 -pipe
> -fstack-protector-strong --param=ssp-buffer-size=4'
> CPPFLAGS=-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2
> LDFLAGS=-Wl,-O1,--sort-common,--as-needed,-z,relro'
> 
> Important settings:
>  value of $LANG: de_DE.ISO-8859-1
>  locale-coding-system: iso-latin-1-unix
> 
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Florian v. Savigny
> 
> 
> 
> 

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