Bug 505242 – x11-wm/windowmaker - wmaker opens links in links instead of firefox

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED INVALID

[Description Alexander Hartner 2014-03-21 04:54:32 UTC]

or some time now all links are being opened in links rather than firefox. This happens for links received on email (thunderbird) but also other applications. It seems as if the default browser was set to links. I know there are options for thunderbird to force it to open links in firefox and this will most likely address the problem, however I am wondering what brought on this changes.

I had a look for any eselect options to specify the default browser, but didn't find any. Then I checked my window maker configuration and similarly failed to find anything referring to links.

Commenting out /usr/share/applications/links_-g_%u-links-2.desktop as follows fixed this issue for me.

Code:	
#Name=Links
#Type=Application
#Comment=A fast and lightweight web browser running in both graphics and text mo
#Exec=links -g %u
#TryExec=links
#Icon=links
#Categories=Network;WebBrowser;
#MimeType=x-scheme-handler/http;x-scheme-handler/https; 

The problem seems to be that xdg-utils pulls in links

See the following forum posts:
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=7518452
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-985926.html

[Comment 1 Rafał Mużyło 2014-03-21 05:51:52 UTC]

...that cause it's not a matter of default *browser*, but default *app* for a mimetype/uri.

Check the content of ~/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list - there you can change the default.

It's not really a bug, it's just handled awkwardly.

[Comment 2 Alexander Hartner 2014-03-21 05:58:36 UTC]

I already tried this. I added the following:

cat .local/share/applications/mimeapps.list 
[Added Associations] 
x-scheme-handler/http=firefox.desktop 
x-scheme-handler/https=firefox.desktop 


Ran "update-desktop-database" and restarted X, but this did not resolve the problem. Only once I commented out the linksXXX.desktop file was the problem resolved. 

I think the bug here is that links get pulled in even though I never ask for it and that the .local override is not accepted.

[Comment 3 Jeroen Roovers (RETIRED) 2014-03-21 18:22:59 UTC]

This isn't something x11-wm/windowmaker is doing. I also do not consider this a bug - it's a matter of configuring your local system properly. If you need support, bring this matter to the attention of our forums, IRC channels and mailing lists.