There is no need for FreeGuide to ask you which browser you use

[Andy Balaam]

During the First Time Wizard, FreeGuide asks which browser you are using.

Instead, it should use the mechanism within Java to launch a URL when it wants to open a browser window.

[Dan Watkins (oddbloke)]

I'll have a go at this. Unless I'm mistaken, it's not going to be possible to do this with 100% certainty. My current thinking is that I'll:
 - attempt to use the new Desktop API, introduced in Java 6 (http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/J2SE/Desktop/javase6/desktop_api/)
 - attempt to use Mac OS or Windows defaults, or 'xdg-open' if on GNU/Linux
 - fallback to asking what browser they would like to use

An alternative to this last step would be to go through a list of browsers (i.e. Firefox, Konqueror, Epiphany etc.) and try to launch them until one works.

[Andy Balaam (mail-artificialworlds)]

Great news! Your plan sounds excellent. I think I prefer falling back onto asking the user rather than "trying them all" since e.g. a GNOME user might have Konqueror installed, but certainly wouldn't want it to be used by FreeGuide.

One other thing to think about: a Debian or Ubuntu user whose system is not modern enough to have xdg-open would have the Debian "sensible-browser" command instead...

[Andy Balaam (mail-artificialworlds)]

Any progress? Thanks, Andy

[Dan Watkins (oddbloke)]

Afraid not. I'm happy to give up the bug if someone else wants to work on it, but hope to continue working on it Real Soon Now.

Dan

[Andy Balaam (mail-artificialworlds)]

Real Soon Now sounds ideal :)

Feel free to keep the bug - I don't think I'll get to it any time soon.

[Andy Balaam (mail-artificialworlds)]

Looks like Daniel is not going to have time to fix this at the moment, so changing status back to Confirmed in case someone else wants to have a go.

[Andy Balaam (mail-artificialworlds)]

Since we now require Java 1.6 or greater, we can simply use the Java api to launch a browser.

[Andy Balaam (mail-artificialworlds)]

I am working on this. It will fall back to the old way if the Java Desktop API fails, but the browser command-line option will become a hidden feature.

[Andy Balaam (mail-artificialworlds)]

A hidden config option, I mean.

[Andy Balaam (mail-artificialworlds)]

I committed the last bit of the fix for this tonight, so hopefully it will now work as expected - use the Java Desktop API, or fall back on a sensible choice of browser if that doesn't work.