Description of problem: xdg-open uses BROWSER for the generic default, it is not a very relevant choice in my opinion. I have just packaged perl-File-MimeInfo in fedora with the mimeopen script which launches apps according to the freedesktop specification, and I think it would be interesting to try to launch an application through mimeopen before using the BROWSER. I have added an option to mimeopen (-n), accepted by upstream, but not released, to launch mimeopen non interactively (otherwise first time it is started it asks for the preferred application for the mime type if there are several). This option is especially suited for what I propose here. I can try to do a patch if you accept the suggestion. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: Steps to Reproduce: 1. 2. 3. Actual results: Expected results: Additional info:
I thought xdg-open uses freedesktop.org default too. (??) Heck, xdg-utils comes from *freedesktop.org*.
xdg-open doesn't do anything by itself. It is a simple shell script which calls, depending on the environment found, kfmclient on kde, exo-open on xfce, coresponding gnome command on gnome - all of which implement more or less the freedesktop specs. When no specific environment is found it calls what is in BROWSER or firefox/netscape/?.
OK, I get it now, using mimeopen as generic fallback sounds reasonable.
Do you want that I do a patch against xdg-open?
Patches are *always* welcome. (:
Created attachment 138729 [details] patch for xdg-open to use mimeopen
To be clear, does Extras' build of mimeopen support the -n (non-interactive) option mentioned in comment #0 ? If so, I'll go ahead an apply/use the patch.
Yes, it does. I added it to be able to use mimeopen non interactively in scripts, it is applied in the fedora version (mimeopen is in perl-File-MimeInfo, and I am the maintainer). The upstream accepted the patch but he doesn't want to do a release soon.
Thanks, patch will find it's way into next build: %changelog * Tue Oct 24 2006 Rex Dieter <rexdieter[AT]users.sf.net> 1.0-2 - prefer mimeopen as generic default (#210797)