Re: Thunderbird and Firefox

[David Brownlee <abs%NetBSD.org@localhost>]

On Thu, 1 Nov 2007, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:

> > Not really, but I don't think that hard coding firefox here is a good
> > idea. You leave out other browsers.
>
> Right -- this is a problem.  Unfortunately, the Thunderbird folks
> haven't exposed this in their GUI.  We certainly should not do that via
> our patches.  We thus have several choices:
>
>         Do nothing.  Anyone who wants clicking on links to work has to
>         hand-edit something, per-user or (I assume) per-site.
>
>         Make the proposed change.  Anyone who wants a different browser
>         or no browser has to hand-edit something, as above.
>
>         Find some way -- the options framework? -- to let sites set
>         their own default.
>
> I don't know how to do #3 in any rational form, though I'll defer to
> those who know pkgsrc better comment further.  I do know that
> interactive installs (i.e., where the person doing the installation is
> prompted for an answer) is a non-starter.
>
> Of #1 and #2, how many people do you think want (a) firefox, (b) some
> other browser; (c) nothing?  Your answer should be weighted by the
> importance of getting it right.
>
> My preference is #1, plus a MESSAGE file warning the administrator what
> file to edit to change the site default.  I'm willing to be persuaded
> otherwise.

        Updated proposal:

        - Add an option to thunderbird 'thunderbird-open-urls', which when
          enabled (by default) will cause thunderbird to default to opening
          clicked links in 'openurl'
        - Add an openurl pkg_alternatives(8) wrapper which firefox and
          other web browsers can provide

        So, if a user installs the default thunderbird package,
        and a web browser, clicking on a link in an email will open
        the URL in the web browser. I think this is a critical
        usability point. People building their own thunderbird
        packages can disable the option, but we should not require
        extra steps for the normal case of getting things to work.

        Admins and users can use pkg_alternatives to set system
        wide and their own openurl preferences respectively.

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