nocebicmeme> OK, I've gotten quite frustrated with the emacs 23
nocebicmeme> options for OS X and I've just installed it via fink for
nocebicmeme> the terminal (iterm).

nocebicmeme> Is there any way in OS X, if I click on a file type
nocebicmeme> associated with emacs, to have it open up in the
nocebicmeme> terminal?

A lot of what I'm about to say is tangental to the original post, but
hopefully some if it will be useful.

I've run Emacs on Mac OS X for years.  I've always built it from
source -- sometimes from release versions, and sometimes from tracking
the CVS trunk.  By the time of emacs-22.3.1 was released, emacs was
incredibly easy to easy to build on Mac OS X: "cd mac &&
./make-package --self-contained".  By the time the command finished,
you had a Carbon Emacs.app, packaged inside a Mac OS X installer
bundle.

When I downloaded 23.1.1, I was surprised to discover that the little
"mac" directory had disappeared.  Emacs 23 seems to be heading down
the path of merging Mac OS X/OpenStep/GNUStep code.  To excerpt a
section of etc/NEWS (from the emacs source distribution):


   ** New NeXTSTEP-based port
   This provides support for GNUstep (via the GNUstep libraries) and Mac
   OS X (via the Cocoa libraries).
   
   Specify --with-ns to configure for this.  By default, a self-contained
   app will be built (containing all lisp).  To install/share lisp with
   other emacsen (e.g. X11 build) use --disable-ns-self-contained.  See
   nextstep/README and nextstep/INSTALL in the Emacs source directory.
   
   Currently, the Nextstep port is not as stable as the other existing
   ports; we hope to improve it in future releases.
   
   ** Mac OS X is no longer supported via Carbon.
   Use the NeXTSTEP port, described above.


There are some very nice things in Emacs 23, but as the NEWS file
warns, there are also quirks under Mac OS X.  Eventually, I went back
to using 22.3.1 [1].  For me, 22.3.1 on Mac OS X has always been
incredibly stable.  (That said, I'll probably be one of the first in
line to try 22.3.2 :)

At the moment, you may have to choose against a pair of competing
interests: Emacs 23, or a very stable emacs on Mac OS X.

More to the original question: a few months ago, there was a thread on
mutt-users@mutt.org about how to have mutt handle mailto: urls [2].
Perhaps there are ideas there that you can use.

Steve


[1] The deciding issue was
     http://emacsbugs.donarmstrong.com/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=4774

[2] http://marc.info/?t=124490782700002&r=1&w=2
     Subest: Mutt on Mac: MuttToMail