browse-url default browser

[Florian Lindner <mailinglists@xgm.de>]

Hello,

(browse-url "http://xgm.de") opens firefox, albeit my default broweser is chromium.

xdg-open "http://xgm.de" opens chromium, even when executed within Emacs eshell, all other applications do so, too.


browse-url calls browse-url-browser-function which defaults to browse-url-default-browser which uses xdg-open if
browse-url-can-use-xdg-open if true. And there I think is the problem.

(defun browse-url-can-use-xdg-open ()
  "Return non-nil if the \"xdg-open\" program can be used.
xdg-open is a desktop utility that calls your preferred web browser.
This requires you to be running either Gnome, KDE, Xfce4 or LXDE."
  (and (getenv "DISPLAY")
       (executable-find "xdg-open")
       ;; xdg-open may call gnome-open and that does not wait for its child
       ;; to finish.  This child may then be killed when the parent dies.
       ;; Use nohup to work around.  See bug#7166, bug#8917, bug#9779 and
       ;; http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2009-07/msg00279.html
       (executable-find "nohup")
       (or (getenv "GNOME_DESKTOP_SESSION_ID")
	   ;; GNOME_DESKTOP_SESSION_ID is deprecated, check on Dbus also.
	   (condition-case nil
	       (eq 0 (call-process
		      "dbus-send" nil nil nil
				  "--dest=org.gnome.SessionManager"
				  "--print-reply"
				  "/org/gnome/SessionManager"
				  "org.gnome.SessionManager.CanShutdown"))
	     (error nil))
	   (equal (getenv "KDE_FULL_SESSION") "true")
	   (condition-case nil
	       (eq 0 (call-process
		      "/bin/sh" nil nil nil
		      "-c"
		      ;; FIXME use string-match rather than grep.
		      "xprop -root _DT_SAVE_MODE|grep xfce4"))
	     (error nil))
	   (member (getenv "DESKTOP_SESSION") '("LXDE" "Lubuntu"))
	   (equal (getenv "XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP") "LXDE"))))



Why is xdg-open only used in Gnome, KDE, Xfce or LXDE? I'm using i3 and xdg-open works like it should.

Of course, I can set (setq browse-url-browser-function 'browse-url-default-browser) but I wonder why the defaults are
that way?

Thanks,
Florian