[Reportbug-maint] Bug#690759: /usr/bin/querybts: querybts does not respect BROWSER if xdg-open (xdg-utils) is installed

[Stuart Prescott]

Package: reportbug
Version: 6.4.3
Severity: minor
File: /usr/bin/querybts

Hi!

in urlutils.py:launch_browser, the xdg-open utility is used to open a browser
to display results. This utility is part of the xdg-utils package and is
suggested by reportbug. Having this utility installed means that the
documented behaviour of the BROWSER environment variable is not followed
as xdg-open does not obey BROWSER but instead has a pile of heuristics to
determine what browser the user really wants.

Using xdg-open is entirely appropriate as few people will have BROWSER
configured but many will have a desktop environment configured to their
preferred browser -- so I'm not suggesting changing that at all. A small
addition to the BROWSER section of querybts(1) would be sufficient:

  Note that the BROWSER environment variable is not used inside desktop
  environments such as Gnome, KDE and Xfce if the xdg-open utility (from the
  xdg-utils package) is present. In those cases, the browser configured
  throught he desktop environment is used instead.

(I realise that this is documenting the behaviour of xdg-open within
querybts(1), but the user has no way of knowing that xdg-open would be used
rather than sensible-browser or BROWSER so this needs to be pointed out
somewhere.)

cheers
Stuart

-- Package-specific info:
** Environment settings:
EDITOR="/usr/bin/vim"
DEBEMAIL="stuart at debian.org"
DEBFULLNAME="Stuart Prescott"
INTERFACE="text"

** /home/chswp/.reportbugrc:
reportbug_version "3.48"
mode standard
ui text
no-cc
header "X-Debbugs-CC: stuart at debian.org"
smtphost reportbug.debian.org

-- System Information:
Debian Release: wheezy/sid
  APT prefers testing-proposed-updates
  APT policy: (550, 'testing-proposed-updates'), (550, 'testing'), (60, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 3.2.0-3-686-pae (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages reportbug depends on:
ii  apt               0.9.7.5
ii  python            2.7.3~rc2-1
ii  python-reportbug  6.4.3

reportbug recommends no packages.

Versions of packages reportbug suggests:
pn  claws-mail                                 <none>
ii  debconf-utils                              1.5.46
ii  debsums                                    2.0.52
ii  dlocate                                    1.02
pn  emacs22-bin-common | emacs23-bin-common    <none>
ii  exim4                                      4.80-5
ii  exim4-daemon-light [mail-transport-agent]  4.80-5
ii  file                                       5.11-2
ii  gnupg                                      1.4.12-4+b1
ii  python-gtk2                                2.24.0-3
pn  python-gtkspell                            <none>
pn  python-urwid                               <none>
ii  python-vte                                 1:0.28.2-5
ii  xdg-utils                                  1.1.0~rc1+git20111210-6

Versions of packages python-reportbug depends on:
ii  apt               0.9.7.5
ii  python            2.7.3~rc2-1
ii  python-debian     0.1.21
ii  python-debianbts  1.11
ii  python-support    1.0.15

python-reportbug suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information