Bug 105734

Summary: xdg-open: prioritizes xdg_mime over $BROWSER
Product: Portland Reporter: Marco Sirabella <marco>
Component: xdg-utilsAssignee: Portland Bugs <portland-bugs>
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX QA Contact:
Severity: enhancement    
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecified   
Hardware: Other   
OS: Linux (All)   
Whiteboard:
i915 platform: i915 features:
Attachments: fix

Description Marco Sirabella 2018-03-25 14:01:06 UTC 
Created attachment 138345 [details] [review]
fix

Even if $BROWSER is set, still prioritizes `xdg-mime query default x-scheme-handler/<schemetype>`.

Version: 
```
$ xdg-open --version
xdg-open 1.1.2
```

Steps to Reproduce:

```
$ BROWSER=echo xdg-open "https://bugs.freedesktop.org/"
```

Actual Behavior:
opens given URL in default web browser (mine is firefox)

Expected Behavior:
run $BROWSER <url>, in this case `echo https://bugs.freedesktop.org/`

if $BROWSER not found, fallback to xdg-mime defaults


I've found a hackish workaround for the time being:

```
$ DISPLAY="" BROWSER=echo xdg-open "https://bugs.freedesktop.org/"
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/
```

I'm attaching a patch for the reordering of priorities to fix this

Thanks,
-- Marco Sirabella
Comment 1 Rex Dieter 2018-03-25 14:46:45 UTC 
I think this is by design... The fallback to using a browser is only used as a last resort.
Comment 2 Marco Sirabella 2018-03-26 02:39:54 UTC 
Looking over this, the request I've made would open any URL that is not a local file with the $BROWSER variable only if set. This is http, but also ftp & others.

I think it makes sense to prioritize a user-defined $BROWSER variable as the user has explicitly stated "I want to use this application(s) as my browser".
Comment 3 Rex Dieter 2018-05-10 14:52:51 UTC 
$BROWSER is still legacy (and will possibly be removed from xdg-utils in a future iteration).  http/https related mimetypes are the modern equivalent to setting preferred browsers

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