Alan J. Flavell wrote:
> One of our users has complained that the local SL30x Thunderbird 
> installation was unable to open URLs.
> 
> Excuse me if this is wrong, but it does not seem to have got an airing 
> on the SL users list, so I thought I'd raise it here.
> 
> Our user pointed me to a posting on the Fermi Linux users list:
> 
> http://listserv.fnal.gov/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0508&L=LINUX-USERS&P=R5027
> 
> But this workaround takes away the user option, and enforces everyone 
> to use the same browser...
> 

Another downpoint on the above solution (where you edit 
/usr/lib/thunderbird-1.0.6/open-browser.sh by hand) is that it get's 
overwritten with an update.  So we'd have to put it into the actual rpm, 
which would mean that it would be the default for everyone, ick.

Another solution which is what I use now is to edit the file

$HOME/.thunderbird/default/<random-characters>/prefs.js
and add the lines

user_pref("network.protocol-handler.app.ftp", "/usr/bin/firefox");
user_pref("network.protocol-handler.app.http", "/usr/bin/firefox");
user_pref("network.protocol-handler.app.https", "/usr/bin/firefox");

But as you say below, this has to be done by each user.

> However, google pointed me to an item at CERN:
> 
> http://linux.web.cern.ch/linux/news.shtml
> (search for the string "gconftool" to find the item).
> 
> This proposes the gconftool-2 command for CLI setting the url-handler
> correctly.  (Or can be done via the GUI).
> 
> I tried the proposed CLI command for myself, and it seemed to do the 
> trick.
> 

So that it's in this thread, the command is

gconftool-2 -s --type=string /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/http/command 
"/usr/bin/firefox %s"

Which I had never seen before you sent this e-mail.

> The CERN item seems to be a proper *user* workaround, but every user 
> would need to carry it out for themselves. I can't help thinking there 
> surely ought to be an effective solution in terms of CLI setting a 
> system default (leaving it open for the minority of users who wanted 
> to use a different browser, to set it for themselves in the way 
> that's described at CERN).
> 
> I'm not familiar enough with GNOME and gconf, but I guess it would be 
> done somewhere in the /etc/gconf/* hierarchy?
> 

I did the SL_desktop_tweaks rpm ... but I really am a KDE person, so I 
really don't know the command.  If someone wants to take a stab at this, 
this would be a very good SL rpm.  I'm willing to make the rpm, if 
someone is willing to figure out the command and procedure, for both 
setting, and unsetting this variable globally.

Troy
-- 
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Troy Dawson  [log in to unmask]  (630)840-6468
Fermilab  ComputingDivision/CSS  CSI Group
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