[27214] in Athena Bugs
Re: linux 9.4.47: htmlview
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jonathan Reed)
Thu Jul 17 17:07:16 2008
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From: Jonathan Reed <jdreed@mit.edu>
To: bugs@mit.edu
In-Reply-To: <70947A85-FE61-4635-A5C1-B8D43639DBAB@mit.edu>
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Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:07:03 -0400
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Gah, last e-mail, I promise...
Apparently, our default setting for new accounts of "firefox %s" as
the url-handler is not acceptable as far as Firefox is concerned, and
users will still get prompted to make it the default browser. Can we
either change the default url-handler to "/usr/lib/firefox/firefox
%s", which works (but presumably is undesirable), or else set default
Firefox preferences to turn off the "Check for Firefox being the
default" setting?
-Jon
On Jul 17, 2008, at 5:01 PM, Jonathan Reed wrote:
> Further further investigation reveals that this is Firefox's
> fault. If you use Firefox's "Make this my default browser"
> feature, it will set the gconf key to:
> /usr/lib/firefox/firefox "%s"
>
> Rendering Natuilus, htmlview, and help unusable.
>
> I was able to reproduce this by setting my gconf key to a bogus
> value, and then select "Yes", when firefox prompted me to make it
> the default browser.
>
> So, I don't know what we want to do about this, if anything. I
> suppose we could put a "fix-firefox" in the release or consult
> locker(s) or something that set the key correctly.
>
> -Jon
>
>
> On Jul 17, 2008, at 4:44 PM, Jonathan Reed wrote:
>
>> Further investigation reveals that it's not just htmlview - having
>> the %s quoted in the url-handler breaks anything attempting to use
>> the URL handler, including, for example, double-clicking on .html
>> files in Nautilus.
>>
>> I haven't investigated this further, so I don't know what changed
>> or when, but it seems like a lot more people than I initially
>> thought have the argument quoted in their url-handler command.
>>
>> -Jon
>>
>> On Jul 17, 2008, at 10:54 AM, Jonathan D Reed wrote:
>>
>>> System name: infinite-loop.mit.edu
>>> Type and version: i686 9.4.47 (with mkserv)
>>> Display type: Intel Corporation 82915G/GV/910GL Integrated
>>> Graphics Controller (rev 04)
>>>
>>> Shell: /bin/athena/tcsh
>>> Window manager: metacity
>>>
>>> What were you trying to do?
>>>
>>> Run htmlview on a URL (via "help", in this case)
>>>
>>> What's wrong:
>>>
>>> htmlview fails if the %s argument in the http url-handler is
>>> quoted. It attempts to display the URL as though it were a file
>>> in
>>> `pwd`.
>>>
>>> What should have happened:
>>>
>>> It should have worked
>>>
>>> Please describe any relevant documentation references:
>>>
>>> It appears that a non-zero number of people have their
>>> url-handler http command set to: /usr/lib/firefox/firefox "%s"
>>> I'm not sure why, perhaps an artifact of several GNOME
>>> migrations. Regardless, in this case, the argument appears to
>>> passed to firefox in its quoted form, which for some reason
>>> causes firefox to interpret it as a file, not a URL.
>>>
>>> I haven't tracked down exactly at what point the quotes cause it
>>> to fail, and I suspect no one cares, but I figured I'd report it.
>>
>
