Default mailto application on Fedora 17

Ed Greshko Ed.Greshko at greshko.com
Tue Jan 8 01:56:06 UTC 2013


On 01/08/2013 02:13 AM, Rex Dieter wrote:
> Dave Close wrote:
>
>> Again, can anyone explain what's going on? Is there some other place
>> that Firefox looks to discover the "system default"?
> Unfortunately, KDE vs gnome looks in different places.
>
> You may want to try (one line):
>
> xdg-settings set default-url-scheme-handler mailto mozilla-
> thunderbird.desktop
>

I've pretty much given up on figuring out "default" applications.  Especially in a multi-desktop environment.

I'm testing a fresh install of F18 (nothing has changed since F17 in this respect).  I installed as GNOME desktop, but then added KDE and Xfce. 

Being a KDE user, I am in a KDE desktop environment.  Thunderbird is not currently installed....

I get....

[egreshko at localhost ~]$ xdg-settings get default-url-scheme-handler mailto
handler is
claws-mail.desktop

When I look in "Applications" of firefox it shows "Use Evolution (default)" in mailto.  There is no mention of claws.

So, it seems that FF is picking up default GNOME information.  Where the system-wide default is kept is unknown to me.  Anyway, I then install TBird but I don't run it....  Nothing changes in the settings of FF or the output of xdg-settings (and I didn't expect any change).

Now, I was lead to believe that gconf-editor should be used to change settings and *override" system-wide defaults.  So, I used that and changed the url-handler for mailto from "evolution --component=mail %s" to "thunderbird %s" and started FF.

It "seems" as if the requisite file was created in the user's directory space....

[egreshko at localhost mailto]$ pwd
/home/egreshko/.gconf/desktop/gnome/url-handlers/mailto
[egreshko at localhost mailto]$ cat %gconf.xml
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<gconf>
        <entry name="command" mtime="1357608594" type="string">
                <stringvalue>thunderbird %s</stringvalue>
        </entry>
</gconf>

Nothing changes in FF and *evolution* is started when a mailto link is clicked.....

I enter the command you've suggest, no error is returned, but nothing has changed....

[egreshko at localhost mailto]$ xdg-settings set default-url-scheme-handler mailto mozilla-thunderbird.desktop
[egreshko at localhost mailto]$ xdg-settings get default-url-scheme-handler mailto
handler is
claws-mail.desktop

BUT, when I start FF and look at "Applications / mailto" I now see...  "Use Claws Mail (default)" !  and evolution is nowhere to be found.

I then set up a Tbird email account and edit its preferences to check and set it as the "default" for E-mail.

xdg-settings still shows it mailto as claws....but now FF has "Use Thunderbird (default)" and claws is nowhere to be found.

So, I've given up on finding how/where default applications information is kept and/or decided upon by various applications.  I only now concentrate on getting things to work the way I want them to work.

-- 
Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning. -- Rick Cook, The Wizardry Compiled


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