Firefox should use the GNOME application chooser

This looks to be upstream:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56662

It does not look like much is happening upstream with this bug. It might make
more sense to make a gnome specific patch for Ubuntu until it is solved upstream.

-dtf

*** Bug 21248 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

*** Bug 21249 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

*** Bug 24789 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

This should be fixed in firefox-gnome-support , which I don't know if it's valid upstream. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56662 has this bug marked as "new" for about six years.

Unless it is done in firefox-gnome-support (and it's counterpart in kde), it seems we will not have it done soon.

this bug was marked as rejected but I'm reopening it: it is clearly a bug, and unless the maintainer indicates clearly that he is not prepared to fix this in any future release, the bug shouldn't be closed. Ian, if you really think this won't be doable even for Dapper+1, close the bug.

I agree that it's a bug. However, I don't think we've got the effort available to fix this in Ubuntu, and we'd probably prefer not to maintain the resulting patch either. So this issue is best addressed upstream, I think.

So I'm setting the bug state for the `Ubuntu task' to `Rejected' again (the LP team assure me that `Rejected' is correct in this case, even though I think the complaint is valid).

Fair enough. Does "upstream" mean mozilla in this case, given that the problem is the use of the wrong GNOME dialogue? Or should this be in the GNOME bugtracker?

Matt

Matthew East writes ("[Bug 18995] Re: "Open With" dialog not user-friendly"):
> Fair enough. Does "upstream" mean mozilla in this case, given that
> the problem is the use of the wrong GNOME dialogue? Or should this
> be in the GNOME bugtracker?

I think upstream means Mozilla in this case.

Ian.

The upstream bug seems to be doing nothing here. Also, it seems to be addressed at a slightly different issue - this bug is that firefox should be able to use the Gnome application chooser, whereas the upstream bug is about creating a new application chooser, or something of that kind.

I'm fairly sure that a couple of Ubuntu releases ago firefox used the Gnome application chooser, whereas with the firefox-gnome-support package in dapper it now just uses a file chooser.

Has anyone investigated whether it would be difficult to use the Gnome application chooser when firefox-gnome-support is installed?

Matt

This is related (but not identical) to https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/58710

This is also a problem with Thunderbird opening email attachements. I think Firefox should include the applications menu from gnome.

This bug should be fast fixed!

Today, an normal new Linux-User asked me how to open a (sending) pdf-file, because he had no idea. The Firefox-open-dialog suggests the program 'less' (Why???). He has tried it. => nothings to see.
After that, I helped and choose /usr/bin/acroread manualy and save it as default.

That's very unusable for _human_ users.

Holy crap, I can't believe I was about to report this bug and have come to find that it's been here since 2005!!! WTF? Seriously, WTF!

When I click on a link to a *.pls file (otherwise known as a "Shoutcast MP3 playlist") It presents the attached screenshot.

Lets say I don't want it to open it with Totem. Instead, I'd like it to play in VLC, (or XMMS for those die hard XMMS fans out there). So I click on the drop down where "Movie Player" is currently shown, and select "Other..." because NOTHING ELSE IS THERE.

Instead of being presented with a nice listing of installed applications, I'm asked to browse my root file structure. I, after 3 years of using this OS, still have little idea as to where I should even look to find VLC or any other app for that matter. New users, I would bet hard cash, HATE THIS. Sorry.

I (Obviously) experience this as well. It's insanely annoying. I don't even try to open the files through that dialog anymore, and instead just save them and open them from the nautilus desktop. This can't be that difficult to fix. Can't we patch the version of Firefox that we use for Ubuntu? Firefox is open-source. We can patch the program with or without the permission of Mozilla. Lets DO that.

Vote on http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/4755/

Voting on a Ubuntu site isnt going to help at all since we are waiting for upstream to fix it than we can add it,

marked confirm

This a bug in firefox as well it is a valid bug against the core of mozilla.

This should be linked to Mozilla bug https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=370380 instead. I can't figure out how to change that though?

Changed firefox task to use 3.0. 2.0 will not get this fix. Marked as low importance since its a bug not a wish and it is not cuasing any security related issues nor does it crash.

Hi *,

   With this small patch applied on Firefox 3 source code, (patch to apply on xulrunner-1.9 package), there's no more need to "open with" and no more problems with others Desktop environments like KDE or XFCE.
   It's based (and so requires) a really small dependency : xdg-open (~5Kb of perl script) and provides a unified way for opening files in Firefox, directly using System Defaults.

   It can be enhanced with a patch on this dialog, replacing "open with" label with something like "open file". We already applied this fix successfully for ~ 1000 users since 3 months, and no problem shown up.
   I am currently trying to push it upstream, but maybe an Ubuntu integration can help this process.

Regards,

Coren, I didn't test it, but I don't think your patch addresses this bug. What this bug is about is that you can't optionally choose other applications registered for the same file type (as is common in e.g. nautilus).

(Sorry if I'm wrong about your patch.)

Hi,
It is clearly a bug because this make "open with" unusable for non geek users. Firefox is one of the most used applications for them. My father simply cannot choose how to open downloaded files. He is totally lost when firefox asks him the "open with" dialog.

Jan Claeys,
   maybe you are wrong with my patch or maybe I am wrong from my point of view :). Let me explain : If you do not have to choose an application at all, you solve the problem with registrations of applications.
   There's already one place where one registers its application : the desktop environment. It seems enough to me, and it also seems the good place for doing this. Firefox should just shut up and use those preferences.

regards,

@Coren: there are often multiple applications for the same MIME-type registered with the desktop-environment, but currently in Firefox there is no way to select them from that list of registered applications, nor does it allow you to select from the other registered applications (e.g. because the MIME-type is/was unknown or wrong, but an application can still open it).

Updated upstream task since that bug was marked a duplicate.

I flagged some other launchpad as duplicate of the current one.

As reported in one of the duplicates (LP #232046) :

"""This can be smoothly resolved in the mean time if Firefox is shipped with different defaults, namely to have xdg-open available as an option for all file types (which I believe is possible) and to have every file type which is not to be viewed internally instead opened using /usr/bin/xdg-open.
If possible, have xdg-open named "Default application" or some such in Firefox, so that something like the download method dialog says "Open with [default application]". """

Because it has an easy solution and it will greatly ease general user experience, I agree with Mat that it should be promoted as the hundredpapercuts project.

I guess it can be done in the ubufox extension.

An extension that shows how to alter the open with dialogue
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8207

I add this , when the open dialog is for seeking a type of files , it should show the extention of the needed file (the current one filters the files but it doesn't show the extention , which made the task somehow more difficult and boring)

I'm not a programmer so I don't have anything productive to add to this discussion, I just want to say that this bug is important to me. I dread the moment when downloading a file in Firefox and the associated application I want to open with isn't in the drop down list. I've been using Ubuntu more than 2 years now and still have lots of trouble locating the application I want. It is a big problem for me, and likely for any non-programmer user who ever downloads files in Firefox.

Thanks everyone for your hard work.

-Chris

Patch looks good, but it's not trivial for us to apply it -- would require much testing, and, more importantly, upstream acceptance. Not a paper cut.

David & others,

As the original reporter of this UX issue I have to say that this surprises
me.

If this is not a "trivially fixable usability bug that the average user
would encounter on his/her first day of using a brand new installation of
the latest version of Ubuntu Desktop Edition.", then nothing is.

It appers you are rejecting a perfectly valid fix to a significant usability
issue because of technicalities. That the patch may require work to apply,
some testing work and work to accept upstream are not in my opinion good
arguments to reject what is essentially a giant stumbling stone for the use
and acceptance of the biggest Open Source browser on Linux by non-geeks.

I'm disappointed by that.

Just my 2 cents.

Kind regards,
Eivind Throndsen

2009/8/7 David Siegel <email address hidden>

> Patch looks good, but it's not trivial for us to apply it -- would
> require much testing, and, more importantly, upstream acceptance. Not a
> paper cut.
>
> ** Changed in: hundredpapercuts
> Status: Confirmed => Invalid
>
> ** Changed in: hundredpapercuts
> Milestone: round-5 => None
>
> --
> [MASTER] "Open With" dialog not user-friendly
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/18995
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of a duplicate bug.
>
> Status in The Mozilla Firefox Browser: Confirmed
> Status in One Hundred Paper Cuts: Invalid
> Status in “firefox-3.0” package in Ubuntu: Triaged
> Status in “mozilla-thunderbird” package in Ubuntu: Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> When choosing to open a file in Firefox, an "Open With" dialog appears.
> You can choose to save the file or open it with a program from the list.
> However, if the desired program to open the file with is NOT listed, the
> user
> must navigate the filesystem to /usr/bin (or wherever) and select the
> appropriate program.
>
> A more user-friendly way would be to list all of the known programs
> installed
> that are available to open files with, and then have an "Other..." or
> "Advanced..." button for the user who would rather navigate the filesystem.
>

The bug is not being rejected. I pushed hard to get it through today,
but the upstream bug has been around for 4(?) years and we are blocking
on Mozilla on this one -- please express your disappointment in the
upstream bug report.

@David Siegel: For those of us arriving late, could you point to documentation which explains why adding the patch to the Ubuntu build is not an option? Upstream is solving a significantly harder problem, that is, implementing everything in a uniform way across diverse platforms. Ubuntu does not have that problem, and the available patch seems to solve the less general problem for Ubuntu quite nicely. (Haven't tried it, but see nothing to indicate the opposite.)

On 08/08/2009 03:51 AM, era wrote:
> @David Siegel: For those of us arriving late, could you point to
> documentation which explains why adding the patch to the Ubuntu build is
> not an option? Upstream is solving a significantly harder problem, that
> is, implementing everything in a uniform way across diverse platforms.
> Ubuntu does not have that problem, and the available patch seems to
> solve the less general problem for Ubuntu quite nicely. (Haven't tried
> it, but see nothing to indicate the opposite.)
>
This is more than something that we want to patch. We dont patch
features we let upstream handle that since it is not a trivial.

Implementing a KDE solution is important since KDE users use Firefox
this is not something we should leave out. This is one big reason
why we have upstream apply feature changes to upstream code.
Its always best to keep patches to a minimum if possible.

if we apply that patch we will have to remove it once it is implemented.
Also there is more than one bug that uses the same code section, so
applying this one is not something they would like until the patch is
updated for all peices of code. This will be implemented for
Xulrunner-1.9.2 + Firefox-3.6 as it looks atm.

--
Sincerely Yours,
    John Vivirito

https://launchpad.net/~gnomefreak
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JohnVivirito
Linux User# 414246

"How can i get lost, if i have no where to go"
    -- Metallica from Unforgiven III

I do not understand. Ubuntu has no problem patching Firefox [1] to show a Google search page, but cannot patch Firefox to use the proper Open With dialogue?

[1] http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1219501

@dotancohen:
I don't know all the details, but the default page in Firefox is simply a configuration option, not a patch that changes or replaces a significant amount of code. What (I think) the Ubuntu developers want is that the Mozilla/Firefox developers either include this into Firefox and/or provide a standard way to "plug in" different "open with" dialogs.

> I don't know all the details, but the default page in Firefox is
> simply a configuration option

No, that configuration option was removed sometime in 2004:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=269664

I agree that the patch should be applied upstream, however, that does not mean that Ubuntu cannot apply the patch to Firefox distributed with Ubuntu until the Mozilla folks get around to fixing the issue. The Mozilla public bugtracker is generally ignored in developing Mozilla products, especially in regards to new feature requests or non-crasher bugs. Very few new Firefox or Thunderbird features started off as Bugzilla RFEs, and very rarely does an RFE or non-crasher / non-security bug get fixed. We will be waiting a long time to see the fix implemented in Firefox, if ever.

If this were a Zim or KDE bug, I would agree that waiting for upstream to apply the patch would be reasonable. But Mozilla? Nobody with experience filing bugs on Mozilla products would hold their breath waiting for Mozilla to fix a non-crasher / non-security bug. In Mozilla's defence, security issues are dealt with _fast_ and I give them all the credit in the world for their dedication to keeping the browser secure.

There is no way to fix this bug with a firefox extension ? There is already some extensions which modify the way to open a file (as said KillerKiwi).

This is a very important issue for the desktop usability.

Basically, what do we need ? What is the command to call with the downloaded file as argument ?

On Mon, 10 Aug 2009 06:51 +0000, "dotancohen" <email address hidden>
wrote:
> > I don't know all the details, but the default page in Firefox is
> > simply a configuration option
>
> No, that configuration option was removed sometime in 2004:
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=269664

Technically, Multisearch is implemented as an extension. You can
disable it if you like. But this is a straw man; if you want to argue
about a different bug, please don't do that here.

I was hoping somebody from the Ubuntu Mozilla team would weigh in with a
proper explanation of why the Firefox core cannot be patched, and under
what circumstances -- if any -- this policy can be deviated from. But
maybe that's a different bug, too. LP #411306

@ktulu77 : As you can see in my patch, the command to call is "xdg-open". It provides a unified way to open a file from the 3 major Desktop Environments (Gnome, KDE, XFCE). I hope to have the time to put it in an extension, it would make it more maintenable since Mozilla & Ubuntu do not agree on how to fix this issue.

@Coren : Ok thank you. If I have some time, I will try to make a firefox extension but I have never done that before.

I have a question, with xdg-open, it opens the file with the default system app. But, if we want to open it with another app, is it possible to display the Gnome UI "Open With" ?

For example, on the firefox "open with" window, we could have :

 * Save As ...
 * Open with default application (xdg-open)
 * Open with another application (??? -> opens Gnome Open With dialog, or Desktop environment Open With dialog if possible)
Of course, the checkbox "Do that automatically next time" would remain the same.

@ktulu : That's not really possible, ATM, because there's no cross-linux desktop API to make things like this. It would requires firefox to be linked to Gnome, KDE and others desktops' libs. That strikes in front the policy of being a cross-platform browser : it's clearly not an option for Firefox.

That's probably why they have implemented their own, in Firefox 3. Maybe it was a good idea, but the result clearly sucks, with Kde users forced to go in "/usr/bin/" in order to open a file. From a Linux integrator point of view, it has REALLY complicated the work to do.

BTW, the "open with" thing is more for power user (20 %). I don't know for you, but people around me are used to double clic on a file to open it, not right clic -> Open With. I was told Ubuntu was for normal user (80 %), those who do not even understand what a software or a file is, who see computer like an advanced Mp3 Player, but maybe it was just a rumor...

On 08/10/2009 05:32 AM, Coren wrote:
> @ktulu77 : As you can see in my patch, the command to call is "xdg-
> open". It provides a unified way to open a file from the 3 major Desktop
> Environments (Gnome, KDE, XFCE). I hope to have the time to put it in an
> extension, it would make it more maintenable since Mozilla & Ubuntu do
> not agree on how to fix this issue.
>
I have already explained this. it is a major hunk of code that needs to
be modified please see both upstream bugs i have pointed out for more info.

--
Sincerely Yours,
    John Vivirito

https://launchpad.net/~gnomefreak
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JohnVivirito
Linux User# 414246

"How can i get lost, if i have no where to go"
    -- Metallica from Unforgiven III

@Coren > If it is not possible, what is the goal of this bug ? I understood the problem was the open with dialog which is not user friendly when we want to choose the app we want to use to open the file.

If there is no cross-linux desktop API, then perhaps we can cheat and detect the desktop environment with the extension, or perhaps, make it configurable in the addon configuration window.

The point is mozilla is not going to resolve this problem until a lot of time, so instead of waiting for that, we could create a quick and dirty fix with a firefox addon.

@John Vivirito > Sorry, but this bug is huge and it is difficult to see the main informations. Perhaps a blueprint would be better ?

Hi all

Are you aware of freedesktop.org and specifically the Portland subproject?
It's a joint GNOME/KDE project to promote better application desktop
integration and seems to have a fairly good momentum.

http://portland.freedesktop.org/wiki/
http://portland.freedesktop.org/xdg-utils-1.0/xdg-mime.html
http://portland.freedesktop.org/xdg-utils-1.0/xdg-open.html

Kind regards,
Eivind

Coren and me were talking about a command-line to open the desktop "open with" dialog. xdg-open just opens the file with the default application. We need a command-line which open the "open with" dialog, to be able to choose the application we want to use.

> But this is a straw man; if you want to argue
> about a different bug, please don't do that here.

I was giving an example of inconsistent decisions. I really do not care about that other bug.

> If there is no cross-linux desktop API, then perhaps we can cheat
> and detect the desktop environment with the extension, or perhaps,
> make it configurable in the addon configuration window.

There is, xdg-open is made just for this.

> I have a question, with xdg-open, it opens the file with the default system app. But, if
> we want to open it with another app, is it possible to display the Gnome UI "Open With" ?

That is bug #232046:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox-3.0/+bug/232046
It was marked as a dupe of this bug.

On 08/10/2009 08:41 AM, ktulu77 wrote:
> @Coren > If it is not possible, what is the goal of this bug ? I
> understood the problem was the open with dialog which is not user
> friendly when we want to choose the app we want to use to open the file.
>
> If there is no cross-linux desktop API, then perhaps we can cheat and
> detect the desktop environment with the extension, or perhaps, make it
> configurable in the addon configuration window.
>
> The point is mozilla is not going to resolve this problem until a lot of
> time, so instead of waiting for that, we could create a quick and dirty
> fix with a firefox addon.
>
> @John Vivirito > Sorry, but this bug is huge and it is difficult to see
> the main informations. Perhaps a blueprint would be better ?
>
This bug is huge does not really mean anything to everyone, This bug is
something people want fixed would be better.
Now as i have explained this bug is a major code change and that is why
upstream is applying it. This is not a "Show stopper" it is a feature
request. Upstream has alot of work to do until it can be added.
As i recall someone asked for this to block xulrunner 1.9.2
(firefox-3.6) We are a long way before that will be stable so they have
time. There is a hacked patched attached to one of the bugs upstream.
Hacked patches are not something we will add either way. once a final
patch is in place we will have it in our build (3.6 or later) this will
not be added to anything <3.6 more than likely since it is such a
massive change.
For more info please see upstream bugs.

--
Sincerely Yours,
    John Vivirito

https://launchpad.net/~gnomefreak
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JohnVivirito
Linux User# 414246

"How can i get lost, if i have no where to go"
    -- Metallica from Unforgiven III

Sorry for my bad english, I wanted to say that there is a lot of messages here and it is difficult to see the important informations.

I understand this can be a hard work to be fixed upstream. I was thinking, as Coren said, that we could do a small firefox addon, while this bug is being fixed by mozilla.

The open with dialog I was speaking about is shown on the image I have attached with this comment. I don't think we can open it with freedesktop commands like xdg. A better window would be the tab "open with" on the properties dialog of a file, but it seems more complicated to implement ...

Anyway, if you think we cannot do a workaround with a firefox addon, I give up. I don't know how to do it anyway.

@ktulu77 : From where di you get this 'Open with' dialog with two tabs 'Installed applications' and 'Available applications'? Is it in the Karmik alpha? I personaly doesn't have such a dialog.

I'm new on this bug, but wondering technically what prevent an extension from replacing the 'Open with' dialog. I mean, could be straight use the default dialog of gnome or is there a need of specific XUL dev? Far over, I know this is not such trivial as my comment could let think.

On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 5:11 PM, PomCompot <<email address hidden>
> wrote:

> @ktulu77 : From where di you get this 'Open with' dialog with two tabs
> 'Installed applications' and 'Available applications'?

It's part of the standard Gnome desktop as far as I know:

* In Nautilus, right click and select 'Open With'.
* Select 'Open With Other Application'.

--
Lars Rune Nøstdal
http://nostdal.org/

On 08/10/2009 11:11 AM, PomCompot wrote:
> @ktulu77 : From where di you get this 'Open with' dialog with two tabs
> 'Installed applications' and 'Available applications'? Is it in the
> Karmik alpha? I personaly doesn't have such a dialog.
>
> I'm new on this bug, but wondering technically what prevent an extension
> from replacing the 'Open with' dialog. I mean, could be straight use the
> default dialog of gnome or is there a need of specific XUL dev? Far
> over, I know this is not such trivial as my comment could let think.
>
If someone wants to take the time to build an .xpi of an extension feel
free however the Ubuntu-mozillateam has alot more to work on that are
more important than a new extension. If you submit an extension here we
will be glad to review it and add it somewhere if not in repos. We would
love an ETA on upstream fix but we can not get that at this stage due to
the code changes that need to be made.
I dont want to add an extension to repos if this will be fixed by
release in Karmic

--
Sincerely Yours,
    John Vivirito

https://launchpad.net/~gnomefreak
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JohnVivirito
Linux User# 414246

"How can i get lost, if i have no where to go"
    -- Metallica from Unforgiven III

Have found this thread on MarkMail speaking of the exactly same problem with another point of view (extracting the 'Open with' dialog from the libnautilus to be usable elsewhere).

I am on Debian Lenny and Nautilus 2.20. Just right click on a file, and go to "open with ..." > "Open with another application".

I have just noticed that in the tab "available applications", I have listed just the applications which can open the file. For example, on a PDF file, I have KPDF, KGhostView, ... (See attachment)

It seems to be exactly the dialog we need, but with this tab opened by default, not the one with all the installed applications.

It seems that this dialog cannot be opened with the freedesktop project. I'll be happy if i'm wrong.

Moving tracking to Firefox 3.5.

Firefox 3.0 is only receiving Security Updates and major bug fixes at this point.

@ktulu77 :
I have forgotten the MarkMail URL in my previous post: http://markmail.org/message/mcarb3i4gg5hcvm3#query:+page:1+mid:qxaeqv22o3pkzgvx+state:results.

On Nautilus 2.26.2, on Jaunty, I don't have the two tabs. Strange.

You will not be happy, because you're right. First, the freedesktop project doesn't provide (yet?) a dialog for 'Open with'. Second, the 'Open with' dialog is hardwired in Nautilus and could not easily be extracted. The native 'Open with' dialog from a Firefox extension seems then to be a harsh part.

About xdg-open, I don't understand the benefit of that compared to the existing code. When you download a type of file from Firefox that you have never open yet, it already automatically proposes, in the dropdown list 'Open with', the associated system application. What the use of this patch with xdg-open in this case because it seems the function is already here?

@PomCompot : The function is already there under Gnome, with "firefox-3.0-gnome-support" package. But it do not inherit preferences from the desktop and it do not work for other Desktop Environment.

@PomCompot > Ok thank your for your response. You are right, if I modify in Nautilus the application which opens a PDF file for example, Firefox will use this application to open PDF files by default (unless I have configured firefox to open it with another application).

So Firefox already uses xdg-open by default. The thing we need is the Nautilus (or desktop environment) dialog to choose the application because the firefox one is not userfriendly.

If this dialog is hardwired in Nautilus, I don't think we can do something easily with a plugin to fix this. It would be even better if this function is supported by the freedesktop project.

@Coren: Thanks Coren, it makes things clearer. Your patch is then needed (solving a first problem, without solving the 'Open with' one, but it's better than nothing).

@ktulu77: In the Gmome mailing list (MarkMail) I referenced, there are two points of view :
- extraction from Nautilus and integration in GTK,
- keep in Nautilus with a DBus functionality to access it from other apps.

I'll try to summarize some points of the MarkMail conversation. It seems that some applications have already developed their own native 'Open with' clone dialog or something approaching (EOG, gThumb with context menu listing). Evince, Epiphany seems also waiting for such a solution. Thunar has already made something available to external apps through DBus.

This conversation seems to have ended on May 2008 and not being alive since. Would be interesting contacting authors to know if they have made some developments on this.

The point is that we have 3 places talking of the same problem : this Launchpad bug report specifically targeting Firefox (and Thunderbird), the Firefox Bugzilla bug report and the Gnome mailing list. The problem is clearly beyond Firefox, even though it is affected and must be corrected. Every application could expect to have an easy access to an 'Open with' applications listing through a GUI (GTK component) or a returned applications list.

In my opinion, it's something common to all desktop environments and though could be a FreeDesktop specification.

The correction of this bug in the one hundred paper cuts seems unreachable if it involves modification of the GTK lib or/and the creation and the implementation of a FreeDesktop spec, but we could at least found an agreement on the way to reach such a solution.

Yes I think it is unreachable for the one hundred paper cuts project.

This bug is clearer for me now. A freedesktop spec would be great.

There is several solutions :

* a spec to open an "open with" dialog, according to a mime type
* a spec to get informations about applications that can open a mime type. Then an application could display these applications the way it wants.

See the manual of xdg-mime, this command could be extended to have such informations for points 2.

I think this could resolve our problems. On first comment on this bug :

"A more user-friendly way would be to list all of the known programs installed
that are available to open files with" -> Second point
"Other..." or "Advanced... button" -> First point

This subject has, of course, already been talked on FreeDesktop. No exactly from this point of view, but for setting up a consensus on the best way to conceive the MIME database. It seems that Gnome and KDE have both common and specific ways of handling that. I will not enter in the details because I don't want to make technical mistakes.

Speaking for Gnome (taken from http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xdg/2008-January/009111.html), each folder which contain .desktop files, also maintains two other files : defaults.list which list default associations, and mimeinfo.cache which list all applications link to a MIME type. You find examples in /usr/share/applications/. You find also a defaults.list file in /etc/gnome/. Those file are system level settings. Then, there is the MIME database which is well described here: http://library.gnome.org/admin/system-admin-guide/stable/mimetypes-database.html.en.

xdg-mime could have a new parameter to retrieve all registered applications for a MIME type. The <email address hidden> seems to be the best place for talking about that.

There are 4 (or 5) complementary steps to provide a consistent experience to the user:
- 1: call xdg-open or xdg-mime to get the default registered application,
- 2: call (a non existing) xdg-mime list to get all registered applications for a MIME type for a short listing of available applications,
- 3: find another way to get all the application with .desktop files installed on the computer for a complete listing of available applications,
(- 4 (optional): get relevant applications available from synaptic for this task (would be great but difficult),)
- 5: in an advanced mode, propose a field to enter an application path (could be a way for preferably access the paths stored in the $PATH variable.

Would be great to have here the knowledge of concerned people, I mean, Gnome dev and FreeDesktop active subscribers on the subject. This is highly too much technical to be embraced so simply.

Related bug in Debian: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=354220

Do you think it's fixed in the next release of ubuntu with firefox 3.6?

Now the opensuse project have a solutions for kde4
http://en.opensuse.org/KDE/FirefoxIntegration
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyp5bX_NV6k

caberg a écrit :
> Do you think it's fixed in the next release of ubuntu with firefox
> 3.6?
>
> Now the opensuse project have a solutions for kde4
> http://en.opensuse.org/KDE/FirefoxIntegration
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyp5bX_NV6k
>
It has begun to be integrated into Kubuntu, thanks to Anthony
Mercatante. It should be much better.

Regards,

--
Loiseleur Michel
Responsable de l'OSSA
Linagora / 27, rue de Berri / 75008 PARIS
Tel/Fax : 01 58 18 68 28 / 01 58 18 68 29
http://www.08000linux.com/ | http://www.tosca-project.net
"Ce n'est pas le logiciel qui est libre, c'est vous"

Note that other GTK applications, such as OpenOffice.org, currently use the KDE file chooser dialogues in KDE as of Karmic.

@dotancohen:
OpenOffice.org is not a GTK+ application, and no, GTK+ applications do not use the KDE file chooser in Karmic. OpenOffice.org got its own port of the file chooser and Qt-based styling.

I have checked and you are right, Yuriy. OOo is not a GTK application. I apologize for the misinformation.

@coren

 Good it will be excellent if the integrated for Ubuntu(Gnome) to!

Okay..its 10th May 2011 and I am running 10.04 Kubuntu on amd64 laptop...been facing this problem lately ....really half a decade to fix this bug?...really wow. I've been using (K)Ubuntu from intrepid days....and this bug appears all of a sudden and I had to reinstall(like many others) the whole OS just because this bug still exists.....reinstalling FF doesn't help either...c'mon guys we love firefox...fix this damn bug Gurus....don't push us over to chrome...plzzz

cheers!!
Venky

It looks to me like the issue here is that the Mozilla team in the past was unwilling to implement anything that wasn't cross platform. I haven't worked with GTK myself but it looks like the new version 3.0 contains features that may just finally resolve this issue.

See: http://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/3.0/GtkAppChooser.html

and

http://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/3.0/GtkAppChooserDialog.html

Now the problem is convincing the Mozilla to upgrade to the new API (I would expect this to be the big challenge here) and use this new feature.

Timothy,

Thanks for the concern. I've moved on from this issue, but good luck to
anyone trying to resolve it.

Chrome solves my needs AND opens PDFs out of the box on all the platforms I
am interested in.

kind regards
Eivind Throndsen

2011/7/27 Timothy Fridey <email address hidden>

> It looks to me like the issue here is that the Mozilla team in the past
> was unwilling to implement anything that wasn't cross platform. I
> haven't worked with GTK myself but it looks like the new version 3.0
> contains features that may just finally resolve this issue.
>
> See: http://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/3.0/GtkAppChooser.html
>
> and
>
> http://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/3.0/GtkAppChooserDialog.html
>
> Now the problem is convincing the Mozilla to upgrade to the new API (I
> would expect this to be the big challenge here) and use this new
> feature.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to a
> duplicate bug report (232046).
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/18995
>
> Title:
> [MASTER] "Open With" dialog not user-friendly
>
> Status in The Mozilla Firefox Browser:
> Confirmed
> Status in One Hundred Paper Cuts:
> Confirmed
> Status in NULL Project:
> Invalid
> Status in “firefox” package in Ubuntu:
> Triaged
> Status in “firefox-3.0” package in Ubuntu:
> Won't Fix
> Status in “firefox-3.5” package in Ubuntu:
> Confirmed
> Status in “mozilla-thunderbird” package in Ubuntu:
> Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> When choosing to open a file in Firefox, an "Open With" dialog appears.
> You can choose to save the file or open it with a program from the list.
> However, if the desired program to open the file with is NOT listed, the
> user
> must navigate the filesystem to /usr/bin (or wherever) and select the
> appropriate program.
>
> A more user-friendly way would be to list all of the known programs
> installed
> that are available to open files with, and then have an "Other..." or
> "Advanced..." button for the user who would rather navigate the
> filesystem.
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/firefox/+bug/18995/+subscriptions
>

It seems that any fix for this would require a significant investment of time from someone with significant technical knowledge - not really papercut material.

This is an easy fix once the firefox port to gtk3 is finished (its currently making good progress). Reconfirming as a papercut.

Yes, Mozilla hard work: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=627699

Is there an ETA on the port? Is it worth targeting to 12.10 or will it take
longer than that?

On 15 June 2012 09:47, Timothy Arceri <email address hidden> wrote:

> This is an easy fix once the firefox port to gtk3 is finished (its
> currently making good progress). Reconfirming as a papercut.
>
> ** Changed in: hundredpapercuts
> Status: Invalid => Triaged
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to One
> Hundred Paper Cuts.
> Matching subscriptions: Papercut bug mail
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/18995
>
> Title:
> [MASTER] "Open With" dialog not user-friendly
>
> Status in The Mozilla Firefox Browser:
> Confirmed
> Status in One Hundred Paper Cuts:
> Triaged
> Status in “firefox” package in Ubuntu:
> Triaged
> Status in “firefox-3.0” package in Ubuntu:
> Won't Fix
> Status in “firefox-3.5” package in Ubuntu:
> Confirmed
> Status in “mozilla-thunderbird” package in Ubuntu:
> Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> When choosing to open a file in Firefox, an "Open With" dialog appears.
> You can choose to save the file or open it with a program from the list.
> However, if the desired program to open the file with is NOT listed, the
> user
> must navigate the filesystem to /usr/bin (or wherever) and select the
> appropriate program.
>
> A more user-friendly way would be to list all of the known programs
> installed
> that are available to open files with, and then have an "Other..." or
> "Advanced..." button for the user who would rather navigate the
> filesystem.
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/firefox/+bug/18995/+subscriptions
>

As far as I can tell the last upstream patch is just waiting on a review from Canonicals Chris Coulson. Although the patch has been waiting for the review for over a month already so who knows.

According to comment #138, there's an upstream patch awaiting review.

comment #138 is about the patches to port firefox to GTK 3 which is a required before this bug is fixed.

I care about getting this fixed, so I'm offering USD 15.00 via FreedomSponsors to the first person who fix it.

Offer link: http://www.freedomsponsors.org/core/issue/416/implement-application-selector-nsimimeinfopossiblelocalhandlers-for-linux

You can also join me and throw in a few bucks there and we'll get it fixed faster. :)

If you fix this issue (see my and other pledgers acceptance criteria there) please use that site to request your payment.

+15 USD from me via FreedomSponsors

10 YEARS ? This bug is still open after 10 years.

Thanks for Timothy Arceri and Mathew Hodson for pushing some kind of progress.

Upstream bug showing "Fix Released" on 2015-06-11
Target milestone - mozilla41
Confirmed ok with Firefox 63 and Thunderbird 60
Marking Ubuntu content as "Fix Released" to close