Gnome launcher drops http ? parameters (query strings) in URLs

indeed.

thank you for your bug report, what browser is configured on you installation? could you describe easy steps to trigger the issue?

Firefox here.

right click the panel, 'add applet'
'custom launcher'
'place' in drop-down
'http://www.towboatgallery.com/ardvark/ardgbeX.php?where=89CentN120' in 'location'

use the launcher.

ah ha! epiphany works fine.

$ firefox -new-tab "http://www.towboatgallery.com/ardvark/ardgbeX.php?where=89CentN120"

works 'as on tv' however...

something fishy there,

I also discovered that setting up the launcher to execute
"firefox http://www.towboatgallery.com/ardvark/ardgbeX.php?where=89CentN120"
 causes it to work correctly. I had previously determined that when executed from somewhere other than a launcher, it also worked OK.

I can confirm this. Firefox is being opened, even though Epiphany is my configured browser. That's probably a separate bug, though.

Steps to reproduce: Right-click on the desktop, click Create Launcher, change the Type to Launcher, enter the URL as the Location, give it a name, click OK, and then double-click the launcher you just created.

Fix was just committed upstream. Thanks for reporting.
http://svn.gnome.org/viewvc/nautilus?view=revision&revision=14372

the bug is fixed in intrepid now

When, if ever, will we see this fixed in Hardy?

there is no backport scheduled for now, the fix would be nice to get in hardy but is not a high priority one either

I really don't understand why this isn't a high priority. This was a
regression from Gutsy to Hardy, and regressions should be fixed as
quickly ASAP, in my opinion. When you break something that was working,
fix it!

--
Richard E."Dick" Dunbar
<email address hidden>
Home:651-528-6026
Cell:612-382-3604
http://www.towboatgallery.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Sebastien Bacher <email address hidden>
Reply-To: Bug 233913 <email address hidden>
To: <email address hidden>
Subject: [Bug 233913] Re: Gnome launcher drops http ? parameters (query
strings) in URLs
Date: Sat, 04 Oct 2008 10:29:14 -0000

there is no backport scheduled for now, the fix would be nice to get in
hardy but is not a high priority one either

Unacceptable priority for an LTS.

Hmm. I've looked at the patch for Intrepid, and it looks pretty simple. If I wanted to submit a patch for Hardy, how would I go about doing it?

If it WAS fixed in Intrepid, IT IS NO LONGER (in the 8.10 release).

I've been thinking about that "unacceptable priority" thing. We're shooting ourselves in the foot, here. This is just the sort of issue of "finishing" of the software that leaves us looking bad. End users don't care how superior the OS is, they care about things that don't work right. I hate to have to explain something like this to a new user... it pains me to hear them say "well, that's stupid" about my favorite operating system.

I'm going to take a look at the Intrepid patch this very night, and see what's involved in adapting it for Hardy.

This is still broken in Intrepid with a nautilus package version of 1:2.24.1-0ubuntu1. Sebastien: What version did you think would fix this?

Solomoriah, my sentiments exactly. I don't think this tight release schedule gives the possibility *any* Ubuntu version will get shined and polished. Ever. Can't happen. No way.

Intrepid adds insult to injury. The properties of a *.desktop file had a "Link" tab which used to allow a copy/paste to get the proper URL. It's GONE in Intrepid!!!

Just tried the 2.24.2 version from upstream and it's still dropping the parameter after the ?, I've reopened the upstream bug, thanks for following up.

It gets worse. If the URL is a 404, then the mime type is changed to unknown and the shortcut does not fire up the browser.

To experiment on Hardy 64, FF3 as default browser, edit the .desktop file and change the URL= link back and forth between existing pages and 404 links.

If you can see your server logs, you'll see the hit in apache's error.log in the 404 case.

In any case, after you toggle the URL= between valid and 404 link, right-click|Properties the desktop link and watch the mime type toggle between text/html and unknown. In other words, right-click|Properties causes a web hit!

May I humbly suggest that desktop web links are a thousand times more important in a post-internet operating system than spinning, 3D windows - on a desktop that stopped working after Hardy on nVideo cards. :)

BIG QUESTION to the experts: Is there any way to take *.desktop launching away from this broken code and replace it with a script that works?

Alex, I found Gnome runs out and connects to every launched URL before passing it to the browser. I discovered this trying to hack around this problem. I bet that's related to what you see with 404s because it ends up handling 404s very clumsily.

the bug has been fixed upstream now and the change will be in jaunty

This bug was fixed in the package nautilus - 1:2.26.0-0ubuntu6

---------------
nautilus (1:2.26.0-0ubuntu6) jaunty; urgency=low

  * debian/patches/90_svn_update.patch:
    - update code to current svn to fix some issues, give some testing to the
      changes and make the 2.26.1 update easier
    - don't regenerate thumbnails every time on some zoom level (lp: #204434)
    - query crasher fix (lp: #341988)
    - don't freeze on some compact view geometries (lp: #350909)
    - dnd in list view should work better (lp: #185387)
    - correctly handle special chars in launchers (lp: #233913, #252902)
    - open dialogs on the correct screen (lp: #282806)

 -- Sebastien Bacher <email address hidden> Wed, 01 Apr 2009 22:53:08 +0200

Still waiting for 8.04 - the original broken version and LTS.
Or some way to replace the broken code with a working launcher.