URL handler should use sensible-browser, not www-browser

Someone should change this to wishlist.

I don't believe this should be wishlist. Not respecting user preferences is a defect.

man 1 urlview:
The BROWSER environment variable is honored only if the rc-file doesn’t contain the COMMAND option.

Hi Emanuele,

Thanks for your attention to this issue. I hope you won't mind if I attempt to defend my position:

This is a usability issue with the default configuration that would be easy to fix. Using sensible-browser is standard practice for Debian systems, and saves users from having to customize configuration files for every package out there that might want to launch a WWW browser.

Mentioning the bug in the man page doesn't make it not a bug, does it?

The default configuration should either use sensible-browser, or not specify COMMAND at all, for the sake of honoring user preferences.

Hi,

I'm happy to hear your opinion. :-)

$BROWSER is not ignored. You can override it through the COMMAND configuration option, which can be placed in the configuration file (global or per-user), and that's clearly stated in the man page.

http://bugs.debian.org/212789 explains why this logic has been introduced.

Probably the confusing thing is just that the default config file provided by the Debian package specifies COMMAND. If you think so, I can upload a new revision with COMMAND commented out.

Let me know.

Hi,

$BROWSER is conditionally ignored, and the condition is that COMMAND is set in the config file. It is set by default, so BROWSER is ignored by default.

More importantly:

I don't think that COMMAND should be commented by default. I think it should be set to sensible-browser by default.

More importantly, I still haven't heard a reason _not_ to use sensible-browser instead of www-browser as the default for COMMAND. I believe using sensible-browser not only solves my issue, but also addresses those issues raised at http://bugs.debian.org/212789.

* Forest Bond <email address hidden>, [2007-07-24 18:06 -0000]:
> I don't think that COMMAND should be commented by default. I think it
> should be set to sensible-browser by default.
>
> More importantly, I still haven't heard a reason _not_ to use sensible-
> browser instead of www-browser as the default for COMMAND. I believe
> using sensible-browser not only solves my issue, but also addresses
> those issues raised at http://bugs.debian.org/212789.

Sounds reasonable. I'll upload to Debian sid a new revision of urlview
which uses sensible browser rather than {x-,}www-browser in
url_handler.sh, without changing the default global config file.

Thanks for your suggestions.
ciao,
    ema

http://www.alittletooquiet.net
On Wed, Jul 25, 2007 at 10:39:15AM -0000, Emanuele Rocca wrote:
> * Forest Bond <email address hidden>, [2007-07-24 18:06 -0000]:
> > I don't think that COMMAND should be commented by default. I think it
> > should be set to sensible-browser by default.
> >
> > More importantly, I still haven't heard a reason _not_ to use sensible-
> > browser instead of www-browser as the default for COMMAND. I believe
> > using sensible-browser not only solves my issue, but also addresses
> > those issues raised at http://bugs.debian.org/212789.
>
> Sounds reasonable. I'll upload to Debian sid a new revision of urlview
> which uses sensible browser rather than {x-,}www-browser in
> url_handler.sh, without changing the default global config file.

Err ... right, that's what I meant :)

thanks,
Forest
--
Forest Bond

This has been fixed in 0.9-17. Closing.

urlview (0.9-17) unstable; urgency=low

  * Use sensible-browser rather than www-browser in url_handler.sh.
  * Updated Standards-Version.

 -- Emanuele Rocca <email address hidden> Sun, 29 Jul 2007 15:41:17 +0200

Thanks for your time.