Re: Preferred Applications dialog (+ PATCH)

[Frank Worsley <fworsley shaw ca>]

Hi Jacob,

> you have a 'dirty' gconf database.  if you installed cleanly gnome 2.0
> it should work correctly.  if there is a http key in the .schemas file
> then that is a bug.

I see. To be honest, I still think that's not a good idea. The default
handler in Gnome should always be Nautilus. Not every possible Nautilus
URL can be defined as a handler in the gconf database - so what if I
enter a smb:// URL? It would open in my default browser and not in
Nautilus as I would expect. 

Of course if we ditch gnome_url_show() as it is right now that wont
matter, but it should be fixed at least for 2.0.x.

> what is wrong with opening images in eog, or text files in gedit?
> 
> i don't really want to view much in my web browser other than html,
> regardless of the protocol.

There is nothing wrong with it, but I think novice users will be
confused. If my mom or a friend or somebody without much computer
experience types in a http:// URL they expect it to open in a browser,
no matter what type of file it is. I think opening it in a different
application would confuse people. 

I also personally still like to view URLs in the browser. For example
somebody sends me an email and says, "Hey check out this cool picture at
http://www.blablabla.com/some/dir/pic.jpg";. I then like to view that in
the browser and have the ability to quickly go to the location bar,
remove the "some/dir/pic.jpg" part to view the actual webpage or replace
it with a different picture to view.

If we ignore what the default should be for a second, I think there
should at least be a gconf value or visible preference to change the
default behaviour. 

Also just removing gnome_url_show() the way it is right now seems kinda
harsh, maybe people are using it??

> >  If you have a show_document() function you would need a
> > preference like "Always open HTTP urls in my default browser".
> 
> why do i want to open a gnumeric file in my web browser?
> 
> why do i want to open an image in my web browser?

See above.

> 
> > The problem is that a URL like http://www.gnome.org/ would open in
> > Nautilus since it is a directory, but is that really what you want?
> 
> it's not a directory, it's text/html:

My mistake. Then again, GnomeVFS might think it's a directory cause no
filename is appended. It really depends on what GnomeVFS thinks it is.

> > While thinking about this, we should also add a "Preferred Mail Client"
> > application option that should then be associated with the mailto: url
> > handler. This is another case where gnome_url_show() would be needed.
> 
> why can't gnome_url_show() do the right thing in both places?
> 

I guess it could look at a gconf setting for the URL handler that either
says "use default app" or "use this handler everytime". 

> so my revised statement is to have the default handler just use
> gnome-vfs's app db, th
> 

Well, I can see your point, but I still like my web browser handling
http. So _my_ revised statement is that we need some sort of
configuration option. ;)

- Frank