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