can't set Epiphany as default browser

[Adam Dingle]

I'm running Ubuntu 13.10 (Saucy), which has Epiphany 3.6.1. I have Epiphany installed on my system and I'd like to set it as default, but it doesn't show up in the list of browsers to choose from in System Settings->Details->Default Applications->Web.

The problem is that /usr/share/applications/epiphany.desktop does not include 'x-scheme-handler/http' in its MimeType list. This MIME type must appear there in order for the control center to recognize this as a Web browser. Note that 'x-scheme-handler/http' *does* appear in epiphany.desktop.in.in in the Epiphany 3.6.1 sources (see https://git.gnome.org/browse/epiphany/tree/data/epiphany.desktop.in.in?h=gnome-3-6). So I believe this is an Ubuntu packaging bug.

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

Ubuntu is mostly in sync with Debian for the epiphany packaging. It looks like Debian has an extra epiphany-newtab.desktop which they moved the http/https handlers to. But because NoDisplay=true is set, System Settings doesn't recognize it. (See the debian/rules.)

I did a little testing now and I don't think the epiphany-newtab.desktop does anything that the regular .desktop doesn't do so we can simplify the packaging and fix this bug.

[Adam Dingle (adam-yorba)]

Unfortunately this bug still occurs in Saucy final. It would be really nice to fix this for Trusty.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

We should fix that one indeed

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

that should be fixed with https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/epiphany-browser/3.8.2-4ubuntu1

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package epiphany-browser - 3.8.2-4ubuntu1

---------------
epiphany-browser (3.8.2-4ubuntu1) trusty; urgency=low

  * Resynchronize on Debian, remaining changes
  * debian/patches/07_bookmarks.patch:
    - Ubuntu-specific default bookmarks, borrowed from Firefox
  * debian/patches/81_ubuntu_force_update_bookmarks_menu.patch:
    - update the bookmarks on changes, needed for appmenu to work correctly

epiphany-browser (3.8.2-4) unstable; urgency=low

  * debian/rules:
    + Drop a bunch of hacks that are not doing their job and also cause
      the build to fail now.

epiphany-browser (3.8.2-3) unstable; urgency=low

  * Upload to unstable
  * debian/control.in:
  - Drop transitional webkit2 packages, let's not polute unstable with
    them. They have only existed in experimental this time around.
  * debian/patches/01_with_webkit2.patch:
  - remove a check for HAVE_WEBKIT2 from a widget header file where it
    won't be defined due to not including config.h, include the wk2
    header unconditionally

epiphany-browser (3.8.2-2) experimental; urgency=low

  [ Jeremy Bicha ]
  * debian/epiphany-browser-webkit2.install:
    - Install adblock plugin
  * debian/control.in:
    - Depend on gnome-icon-theme-symbolic (Closes: #705665).
  * debian/rules:
    - Don't install a separate epiphany-newtab.desktop as this
      broke the ability to set epiphany as the default browser in
      System Settings>Details (LP: #1187203). Closes: #711186.

  [ Gustavo Noronha Silva ]
  * debian/control.in, debian/rules, epiphany-browser{,-data,webkit2}.install:
  - Build only the WebKit2 flavor, Epiphany no longer supports the old
    API from 3.9 on, let's start moving towards that.

epiphany-browser (3.8.2-1) experimental; urgency=low

  [ Jeremy Bicha ]
  * debian/rules:
    - Use lsb_release to fill in distributor name too

  [ Emilio Pozuelo Monfort ]
  * New upstream release.
    + debian/control.in:
      - Bump libwebkt2gtk requirements to ensure a dependency against
        the new SONAME.
      - Update build dependencies.
    + debian/watch:
      - Track stable releases.
    + debian/patches/00_epiphany-browser.patch:
      - Refreshed.
    + debian/patches/01_with_webkit2.patch:
      - Bring back --with-webkit2 configure option so that we can
        build two flavors, one with webkit2 and one with webkit.

epiphany-browser (3.7.91-1) experimental; urgency=low

  * New upstream development release
  * debian/rules:
  - adjust configure arguments to new upstream realities:
    + no more extensions support
    + CA file is now found by libsoup without help
    + scrollkeeper is no more for a bit
  * debian/control, debian/gir1.2-epiphany-3.6.install,
    debian/epiphany-browser-dev.*, debian/rules:
  - remove GIR and -dev packages, there is no extensions support
    anymore, so those packages are no longer needed
  * Add packages for a WebKit2-powered Epiphany
  * debian/control.in:
  - add new build-dependencies: libsecret-1-dev libwnck-3-dev
 -- Sebastien Bacher <email address hidden> Wed, 13 Nov 2013 11:39:29 +0100