Skip to main content ↑ ↓
Topic: bug: #496 update-alternatives --config x-www-browser (Read 2696 times)

bug: #496 update-alternatives --config x-www-browser

I have no clue where to post bugs, I am tired searching it, I think I do it here:

otter browser doesn't seem to care about x-www-browser and the list oft alternate browsers. When clicking on an URL within an info window within gparted otterbrowser opened it (although *opera* is my default browser).

There seems to be no way to tell otter to queue up and respect the settings made for other browsers (such as FF/IW, opera or others). It is not even listed in update-alternatives --config x-www-browser .

Please make otter behave a bit more cooperative with what a user likes for his system. I am waiting and hoping to make otter my default one day, but until then it should respect my x-www-browser configuration.

Thanks

Re: bug: # update-alternatives --config x-www-browser

Reply #1 –
Except that Otter is missing an entry in the alternatives system, I can't confirm. (Reported as #496.) All links open in Opera for me. Is it possible that you did something to make Otter the default in spite of this missing feature and that you forgot about it?

Re: bug: # update-alternatives --config x-www-browser

Reply #2 –
Quote from: Frenzie on

Except that Otter is missing an entry in the alternatives system, I can't confirm. (Reported as #496.)

Thanks!

Quote
All links open in Opera for me. Is it possible that you did something to make Otter the default in spite of this missing feature and that you forgot about it?
I don't think so as I only recently (re-) discovered the alternatives system when I had a problem with libre-office using FF for URLs. I set opera as preferred browser. The only thing which comes in my mind is that I installed otter-browser *after* I made this setting for x-www-browser. Maybe not being listed gives otter-browser some privelege?

Did you try the URL in this gparded info window? That's btw the only time I noticed this behaviour! As far as I can tell so far it is limited to this particular program.

Thanks again.

Re: bug: #496 update-alternatives --config x-www-browser

Reply #3 –
Quote from: mlhd on
Did you try the URL in this gparded info window? That's btw the only time I noticed this behaviour! As far as I can tell so far it is limited to this particular program.

No, I merely made sure to install the latest weekly DEB package (as it might be subtly different from the one I compiled myself) and tried opening links from some random applications, both with and without the Otter window open.

I just retried with the additional information you gave (GParted > Help > About > Click http://gparted.org link) and I can confirm that it does not follow my system's preferences. However, for me it opens Qupzilla.

The obvious culprit would seem to be Gtk, specifically Gtk 2, but I tested some other applications and it's not. Then I tested gksudo evince (you could plug in any application there, of course) and opened the link in its about window. It opened Qupzilla. So there you have it. ;)

However, that still doesn't really explain it. sudo update-alternatives --config x-www-browser says Opera is the default browser. A possible answer arises when running gksudo exo-preferred-applications (Xfce's Preferred Applications preferences dialog). It says something called "Debian Sensible Browser" is the default. My best guess at this point is that this "Sensible Browser" setting just picks something more or less at random. From my regular userspace it seems to open things in Opera, yet from superuser it goes to Qupzilla.

PS Changing it to Opera doesn't really solve the problem. Instead of passing the link on to a browser in userspace it opens in a new root Opera profile instead. So your Otter (and my Qupzilla) were actually running as root, which sounds rather dangerous.

PPS I can't figure out where this "Debian Sensible Browser" is coming from. It's not in /usr/share/applications/.

PPPS I found it, sort of. See man sensible-browser:
Quote
NAME
       sensible-editor, sensible-pager, sensible-browser - sensible editing, paging, and web browsing

SYNOPSIS
       sensible-editor [OPTIONS...]
       sensible-pager [OPTIONS...]
       sensible-browser url

DESCRIPTION
       sensible-editor, sensible-pager and sensible-browser make sensible decisions on which editor, pager, and
       web browser to call, respectively.  Programs in Debian can use these scripts as  their  default  editor,
       pager, or web browser or emulate their behavior.

Though I still don't know where the dropdown entry comes from. Or why it thinks e.g. Qupzilla or Otter are better choices than what was set through update-alternatives. What I do know based on checking the script itself in /usr/bin/sensible-browser is that it depends on the $BROWSER environment variable, something which my system doesn't seem to have. Perhaps mimetypes are involved? Meh, this is starting to take too much time to investigate. Maybe some other time.:)

Re: bug: #496 update-alternatives --config x-www-browser

Reply #4 –
gparted is based on gtkmm (as I learned the last days while searching for gparted font setting outside a gnome session but with fluxbox). gtkmm is a toolkit somewhere in betwenn C++ and gtk+ . Maybe this sensible-browser-thing is part of gtkmm. If so, gparted were to blame for the misfunction.

Re: bug: #496 update-alternatives --config x-www-browser

Reply #5 –
Sorry, I suppose I wasn't clear. What's to blame is the fact that the superuser isn't your normal account. I only tried to describe how I narrowed down the problem. In retrospect thinking it could potentially be Gtk-related seems a bit silly since I click links in Pidgin all the time.