getting default applications

[Amy C <mathematical coffee gmail com>]

Hi all,

How may I determine the default chat and email applications (from an extension)?

I noticed I have a file
`.local/share/applications/preferred-mail-reader.desktop` which I can
use to get the default email application - can I rely on this always
being there?

However there is no analog `preferred-chat-client.desktop`, so how can
I grab the default chat client (is there even such a thing)?

cheers