Accessing firefox from thunderbird mail message

You can always go into KDE Control Center, KDE Components, File Associations and change your associations, eg. for HTML file type, to Firefox. I think that should work.

Thanks for the reply.
Follwing your direction, I went to KDE Control Center >> File Associations >> then looked for reference to html and found one under "text" then moved "Mozilla Firefox" ahead of "Konqueror".
But that didnt make any difference.
Am I looking in the wrong place?

Hmm ... I thought that might work, but I'm stuck in Windozeland at the moment and can't check. What browser are the Thunderbird links pulling up in, if any?

Bilzer, another way you can change this is as follows:

Start firefox. Go to Edit -> Preferences -> General -> Default Browser
Then, check "Firefox should check to see if it is the default browser when starting".

Jon

I'm using firefox 1.0.3 thunderbird 1.0.7
Tried "Start firefox. Go to Edit -> Preferences -> General -> Default Browser" -- I dont find "Default Browser" there, or anywhere else under preferences.
Looked for something like that in thunderbird -- nothing. ??

These changes are done in firefox, not thunderbird. Did you highlight the General group (the different items on the left)? "Default Browser" should then be 2/3 down in the window.

Jon

In firefox 1.0.3 hilited General.
There are four selections: Home Page, Fonts & Colors, Languages, Connections.
Within these I found no "Default Browser. ??

I don't have this option in Firefox 1.07 for Linux, either. It seems to only exist in Windows, maybe because IE has a way of becoming the default browser all the time in Windoze ... In Linux, your default browser for Thunderbird is set in the file /etc/mozilla-thunderbird/global-config.js. So you can change it by editing that file as root (from KDE, click on K button, then Run, then type kdesu kate /etc/mozilla-thunderbird/global-config.js). What you want is a couple of uncommented lines in there like this:

pref("network.protocol-handler.app.http","mozilla-firefox");
pref("network.protocol-handler.app.https","mozilla-firefox");

or you can have lines like this:

pref("network.protocol-handler.app.http","x-www-browser");
pref("network.protocol-handler.app.https","x-www-browser");

as long as x-www-browser, the Debian default browser, points to mozilla-firefox. To set this, on the command line as root, you'd type:
update-alternatives --set x-www-browser /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox

If you don't have a browser defined in the global-config.js file (lines commented out or not there), then you can just run as root:
dpkg-reconfigure mozilla-thunderbird
and select Debian and it will auto-configure your default browser as x-www-browser, as above, in the file auto-config.js.

In KDE, you can choose a default web browser under Control Panel, KDE Components, Component Chooser, Web Browser, but this only affects KDE applications, so not Thunderbird.

A clarification awk. I'm running firefox 1.0.7 in SimplyMepis 3.3.1-1. My version of firefox does have the Default Browser section.

But this obviously isn't helping

Try this instead. Although I don't have any of these settings on my system and firefox is my default. Go into KDE Control Center. In the Index to the left, choose KDE Components, next Component Chooser. The last item in the Component Chooser on the right is Web Browser. There, to the right, you should see Default Component. On my system "Open http and https URLs" is marked as "in a application based on the contents of the URL". However, you might want to check "in the following browser" and enter "firefox" in the box. Click the Apply button. Let me know if this works for you

Jon

Thanks again to both for your suggestions.

My default settings
pref("network.protocol-handler.app.http","mozilla-firefox");
pref("network.protocol-handler.app.https","mozilla-firefox");
I changed to:
pref("network.protocol-handler.app.http","x-www-browser");
pref("network.protocol-handler.app.https","x-www-browser");
(that didnt work)
Then did as root: dpkg-reconfigure mozilla-thunderbird - change was made but (that didnt work).
Then tried the change in Control Center - that didnt work.

With all changes, tried three ways:
just with making change - restarting browsers - then with a reboot.

I guess I will just continue opening both programs, then copying the link from thunerbird to firefox - an annoyance since I do this a lot.

In the Firefox URL address box (where you type the website address you want to go to) type about:config. Scroll down to the entry "network.protocol-handler.app.mailto". Right click on this line. A little menu should pup up. Click on "modify". An input box should pop up. Replace whatever is there with mozilla-thunderbird. Close and restart FF. That should do it. Works for me.
=========
Oops. You were looking for it to work the opposite way. sorry, never mind. I did what you're trying to do, but can't remember how. I'll try to figure it out. It definitely can be done.

Submitted by bilzer on Fri, 11/11/2005 - 15:40.

bilzer,

I used to have this problem when using old(er) versions of FF.

Problem solved when I went to the current 1.0.7, and even better yet the latest 1.5.rc2

Defintely not an issue with using current FF. Try that and let us know.

Ken
In a world without walls and fences nobody needs Windows and Gates!
User #104362 with the Linux Counter, http://counter.li.org

Seems like upgrading Firefox is worth a shot at this point. Also, if you want to use x-www-browser you should do a

update-alternatives --set x-www-browser /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox

or

update-alternatives --config x-www-browser

to select from a menu. This will make sure x-www-browser points to the browser you want to use.

Updated to firefox 1.0.7 using syaptic
rebooted.
update-alternatives --config x-www-browser (shows mozilla-firefox is set)
No change - still cannot go from the thunderbird to filrefox without copying and pasting the link into firefox.
Maybe we should give up on this. Tnanks.

What happens exactly when you click on a link in Thunderbird (ie. does it do anything)? I have Thunderbird 1.0.7-3 and Firefox 1.0.7-1 and these procedures work for me, I can change what browser is used to open a link in Thunderbird. Your Thunderbird configuration seems good, from what you report it was set to use Firefox for links to begin with, so there is some other problem. When dpkg-reconfigure is run, it puts the browser preference in the file auto-config.js, however if a browser preference is set in global-config.js, that takes precedence. So the only way dpkg-reconfigure will do anything is if all the browser preferences in global-config.js are commented out with //, or the global-config.js file is simply renamed. I'm not very hopeful this info will help your problem at the moment, but if you wanted one more thing to try ... Another thing you could try, run mozilla-thunderbird from a console and see if it gives any error messages when trying to open a link in a message. You could type
mozilla-thunderbird -profilemanager to create a new profile for thunderbird, in case there is some issue related to your current user profile ( http://www.mozilla.org/support/thunderbird/profile ). Looks like Thunderbird has had the ability to open urls in a default browser since version 0.4: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/thunderbird/linuxurls.html

I went back to my old amd k6-2 that had the mepis 3.3.1, FF 1.0.3, Tbird 1.0.7 and guess what? I can go from Tbird to FF (not already on) and bring up the link on FF!
I don't have any mods in this machine other than Tbird install.

Next I installed Mepis 3.3.1 in an unused partition in my new machine E-machine intel celeron which has the problem (only takes 15 minutes), FFox already installed, then I installed Tbird 1.0.7 - and still can't link to the FF site.
This install has no mods except the Tbird install.

Can difference in processors cause software to behave differently?

Bilzer, your last post is rather interesting. Where on the "stock" amd system works, and your "non-stock" intel machine does not.

My question is this: How are you [b]installing[b] firefox and/or thunderbird? Are you loading source and compiling, or are you installing the package? If you're installing source and compiling and it's not working, I would recommend going into synaptic and choosing to "completely remove" the package, and then reinstall the package.

Jon

The Intel machine - newly installed mepis 3.3.1 in a separate partition from the original mepis - has no mods. I only installed thunderbird.
I did not compile it.
Firefox came with the distribution.
I will try ONE more time - in that new partition - delete tbird and reinstall from the syaptic package.

This is pretty strange. Are you sure the old machine has the exact same version of Mepis on it (eg. 3.3.1, not 3.3). Also, to make sure they have the exact same version of Thunderbird, check the full version you get when typing in konsole:

dpkg -s mozilla-thunderbird

Before reinstalling Thunderbird, try this, in konsole, as your regular user (not as root):

mv ~/.thunderbird ~/.thunderbird_old

Then, as root:

mv /etc/mozilla-thunderbird/global-config.js /etc/mozilla-thunderbird/global-config.js_old

dpkg --purge mozilla-thunderbird

Then reinstall:

apt-get install mozilla-thunderbird

Then become regular user again and run mozilla-thunderbird from konsole:

mozilla-thunderbird

My guess is you did not opt for 'debian' integration when installing thunderbird. However, there's an easy fix right on this forum:

http://www.mepis.org/node/4393

cheers

Newbie or not Newbie, there's always a question

Debian integration selection during the install does it.
I reinstalled - this time paying attention to this. Don't know how I missed it.

We're done -- thanks for all your help.