[maemo-developers] passing arguments to hildon applications

[From: josh.soref at nokia.com]

Andrew Daviel wrote:
> I'd like mailcap to work as a fallback; it's simple,

Kinda, it's not so simple (see below)

> I understand it, and it's been standard in Unix for years.

It's actually been poorly supported/unsupported for years.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?query_format=advanced&short_des
c_type=allwordssubstr&short_desc=mailcap&long_desc_type=substring&long_d
esc=&bug_file_loc_type=allwordssubstr&bug_file_loc=&status_whiteboard_ty
pe=allwordssubstr&status_whiteboard=&keywords_type=allwords&keywords=&em
ailassigned_to1=1&emailtype1=exact&email1=&emailassigned_to2=1&emailrepo
rter2=1&emailqa_contact2=1&emailtype2=exact&email2=&bugidtype=include&bu
g_id=&votes=&chfieldfrom=&chfieldto=Now&chfieldvalue=&cmdtype=doit&order
=Reuse+same+sort+as+last+time&field0-0-0=noop&type0-0-0=noop&value0-0-0=

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?bug_id=83305,115041,120380,1627
42,173106
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=83305	Add correct
parsing/spawning of handlers from mailcap entries
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=115041	support %u in
mailcap helpers
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=120380	needsterminal
flag in mailcap must be respected
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=162742	Helper
Applications doesn't prepopulate based on mailcap
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=173106	copiousoutput
ignored in mailcap

I think this doesn't include the fairly important bug about file handles
not being closed before helper applications are spawned.

> Apart from the streaming media playlists,
> I have entries on my desktop for things like Xfig,
> LaTeX DVI, PostScript, Excel etc. while installers
> for things like Java Web Start
> assume they can add mailcap entries.

I'm not knocking mailcap. I happen to think it's nice in theory too.

But in practice, there are a lot of problems, a number of which are hard
if not impossible to solve properly.

> Any application specifically written for the tablet would use
> DBUS, but we might still port desktop applications which run
> from the command line.

Someone should write a dbus wrapper thing....

But yes, gecko kinda supports mailcap and microb or tablet-browser
breaks it. Sorry about that.