Re: how to open links etc

On Sun, 18 Sep 2011 00:48:37 -0400, Walter Dnes <waltdnes-SLHPyeZ9y/[email protected]>  
wrote:

>   Can we have 3 options?
> 1) The "out-of-the-box" default is to ask what to do
> 2) Save to disk
> 3) Specify a helper application.  Allow to specify parameters as  
> required.

That's exactly what I was thinking.  Good; that probably means neither of  
us is crazy.  (Or else we're *both* crazy, but at least neither of us is  
crazy alone!)

>   And for number 3; puhleeeese don't "pull a Firefox" by de-referencing
> symlinks.  For instance...
>
> $ ll /usr/bin/abiword
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 11 Sep  3 02:53 /usr/bin/abiword -> abiword-2.8
>
>   When you tell Firefox to use abiword for *.doc files, it de-references
> the symlink and uses /usr/bin/abiword-2.8.  So a few weeks from now, an
> update upgrades me to abiword-2.9 and Firefox whines about not being
> able to find /usr/bin/abiword-2.8 when I click on a link to a *.doc
> file.  See also https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=176486
> Warning, some strong language from annoyed users.  See especially
> comments 46, 47, and 48.

What's the point of dereferencing symlinks, anyway?  Symlinks in /usr/bin  
are usually there for a reason, and dereferencing them would actually take  
*more* code than not.

I'm tempted to fire up my Unix machine and just start coding now... and  
yes, I do keep an OpenBSD install and unpatched mainline sources handy, in  
case anyone thinks I only code for the one platform :-)

~Benjamin