preferred vs. running browser

preferred vs. running browser

[Werner LEMBERG]

IMHO there are two problems with the default browser in browse-url.

  . In browse-url-default-browser, Mozilla is preferred to Firefox.
    It seems that today Firefox is already more popular than Mozilla,
    so I suggest to revert the default order.

  . browse-url doesn't check whether one of the listed browsers is
    already running (assuming that browse-url-browser-function is not
    customized, this is, the value is 'browse-url-default-browser).  In
    my case I have called firefox, but browse-url called mozilla.

    Wouldn't it be better to add some code so that a browser which is
    currently running is always tried first?


      Werner

Re: preferred vs. running browser

[Sascha Wilde]

Werner LEMBERG <wl@gnu.org> wrote:

> IMHO there are two problems with the default browser in browse-url.
>
>   . In browse-url-default-browser, Mozilla is preferred to Firefox.
>     It seems that today Firefox is already more popular than Mozilla,
>     so I suggest to revert the default order.

I do agree.  Particularly with regard to the fact, that there won't be
any end user releases of mozilla anymore.

cheers
sascha
-- 
Sascha Wilde
Nota bene: wenn Word für Längeres geeignet wäre, würde es schließlich
nicht Word, sondern Sentence, Page oder Article heißen
 	-- Matthias Mühlich in dctt

Re: preferred vs. running browser

[Richard Stallman]

	Wouldn't it be better to add some code so that a browser which is
	currently running is always tried first?

That would be a good idea, if there is a way to find this out.
Can you write a patch for this?

Changing the order to put firefox first seems ok too.

Re: preferred vs. running browser

[Werner LEMBERG]

> 	Wouldn't it be better to add some code so that a browser which
> 	is currently running is always tried first?
> 
> That would be a good idea, if there is a way to find this out.  Can
> you write a patch for this?

I'm very sorry, but I can't -- I have no idea how to do that.


    Werner

Re: preferred vs. running browser

[Tomas Zerolo]

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On Sun, Apr 23, 2006 at 06:36:14AM +0200, Werner LEMBERG wrote:
> 
> IMHO there are two problems with the default browser in browse-url.
> 
>   . In browse-url-default-browser, Mozilla is preferred to Firefox.
>     It seems that today Firefox is already more popular than Mozilla,
>     so I suggest to revert the default order.
> 
>   . browse-url doesn't check whether one of the listed browsers is
>     already running (assuming that browse-url-browser-function is not
>     customized, this is, the value is 'browse-url-default-browser).  In
>     my case I have called firefox, but browse-url called mozilla.
> 
>     Wouldn't it be better to add some code so that a browser which is

Hmpf. You could always try to write a wrapper shell script which tries
alternatives, in descending order of desirability, like so:

  firefox -remote "openURL(http://www.emacswiki.org,new-tab)" ||
  <<try Konqueror remotely>> ||
  <<start firefox>> ||
  <<*GASP* Internet Explorer there?>> ||
  ...

Since this order of desirability is highly user-dependent, it'd be
difficult to give one general solution. Of course you could do this in
Emacs Lisp as well, but again, a general solution might lead to a
customization jungle, I fear.

How would you go about it?

Regards
-- tomás

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Re: preferred vs. running browser

[Werner LEMBERG]

> > . browse-url doesn't check whether one of the listed browsers is
> >   already running (assuming that browse-url-browser-function is
> >   not customized, this is, the value is
> >   'browse-url-default-browser).  In my case I have called firefox,
> >   but browse-url called mozilla.
> >
> >   Wouldn't it be better to add some code so that a browser which
> >   is
>
> Hmpf. You could always try to write a wrapper shell script which tries
> alternatives, in descending order of desirability, like so:
>
>   firefox -remote "openURL(http://www.emacswiki.org,new-tab)" ||
>   <<try Konqueror remotely>> ||
>   <<start firefox>> ||
>   <<*GASP* Internet Explorer there?>> ||
>   ...

There is probably a misunderstanding.  My main interest is to avoid
opening a second browser.  Assuming that Emacs has `Mozilla' first in
its list, and I'm running Firefox, browse-url ignores the latter and
starts a fresh Mozilla.  I would like this behaviour:

  . If browse-url-browser-function is customized to a specific
    browser, always use it.

  . Otherwise check whether there is a browser running -- I don't know
    whether it is possible to do that.  If such a browser is found,
    use it.

  . Otherwise, start a new browser, trying binaries in the order as
    specified within browse-url-default-browser.


     Werner

Re: preferred vs. running browser

[Reiner Steib]

On Tue, Apr 25 2006, Werner LEMBERG wrote:

>   . Otherwise check whether there is a browser running -- I don't know
>     whether it is possible to do that.  If such a browser is found,
>     use it.

For Firefox (and probably also other Gecko-based browsers) you can
check the output of `firefox -remote "ping()"'.

Bye, Reiner.
-- 
       ,,,
      (o o)
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Re: preferred vs. running browser

[Richard Stallman]

    > 	Wouldn't it be better to add some code so that a browser which
    > 	is currently running is always tried first?

Can someone figure out how to do that?

Re: preferred vs. running browser

[Richard Stallman]

    alternatives, in descending order of desirability, like so:

      firefox -remote "openURL(http://www.emacswiki.org,new-tab)" ||

What does -remote mean?

      <<try Konqueror remotely>> ||

      <<start firefox>> ||

Once we get to the point of starting a browser,
if none is running, we can use the existing code in browse-url.

Re: preferred vs. running browser

[Lennart Borgman]

Richard Stallman wrote:
>     > 	Wouldn't it be better to add some code so that a browser which
>     > 	is currently running is always tried first?
>
> Can someone figure out how to do that?
>   
One way to do this would perhaps be to look at the running processes. 
But in my opinion this behaviour would be confusing. At least on w32 
users are used to that a default browser is used.

Re: preferred vs. running browser

[Stefan Monnier]

>> Wouldn't it be better to add some code so that a browser which
>> is currently running is always tried first?
> Can someone figure out how to do that?

I'm not sure it's an important feature (some may even think it's
a misfeature).  But one way to attack it (short of looking at the list of
running processes) is to look at timestamps on "witness" files: most
browsers modify/create some of the user's config files at startup (and/or
while running).  E.g. ~/.firefox/default/*/lock or some such.

I'm afraid it won't be 100% reliable, tho.


        Stefan

Re: preferred vs. running browser

[Tomas Zerolo]

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On Tue, Apr 25, 2006 at 06:05:11PM -0400, Richard Stallman wrote:
>     alternatives, in descending order of desirability, like so:
> 
>       firefox -remote "openURL(http://www.emacswiki.org,new-tab)" ||

Ah, yes, sorry -- I should've mentioned: it tries to send a command to
an already running browser instance (in this case open an URL in a new
tab). If there is no browser reachable (in the X session, I guess), the
command just fails.

So basically there is no difference in whether we try to open something
in a running browser or starting a new browser instance (just different
command lines to try). This would work for Mozilla based browsers; I
don't know about others (but I'd expect them to mimic Mozilla in this
respect).

So my proposal was just to have a list of methods to try (the user
chosing the priorities) -- in the default list, we'd try first (say)
a running Firefox instance, then (say) a running Mozilla instance and so
on, then starting a Firefox instance.

One could do this in an external shell script (so Emacs wouldn't be
aware of all this going on) or as a Lisp function (so the user could
Customize the prioritized list. Usually the distributors will provide a
sensible default).

Now we'd have to find out whether other browsers support a similar thing
to -remote (i.e. open an URL in a running instance and let us know it
worked).

Regards
-- tomás

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Re: preferred vs. running browser

[Richard Stallman]

    Ah, yes, sorry -- I should've mentioned: it tries to send a command to
    an already running browser instance (in this case open an URL in a new
    tab). If there is no browser reachable (in the X session, I guess), the
    command just fails.

That is a plausible method for doing the job.