Opening Web Page added to Home Screen should use Default Browser without further options

Bug Reports
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#1

REPRODUCIBILITY (% or how often): 100%
BUILD ID = OS VERSION (Settings > About product): 4.3
HARDWARE (XA2, X10, X10 II, …): XA2
UI LANGUAGE:ENGLISH
REGRESSION: (compared to previous public release: Yes, No, ?): Yes

DESCRIPTION:

Prior to the latest 4.3 SFOS release, if you tapped on a web link previously placed on the Home Screen app grid by the default web browser then that link would simply open in the SFOS web browser. Nice, accessible and simple.

In 4.3, the functionality appears to have changed, and you now get the ‘Open With’ dialog presented showing all sorts of apps that you can and can’t open URLs with. So even if you select the correct app an extra step has been unnecessarily added.

PRECONDITIONS:

URL link on Home Screen app grid

STEPS TO REPRODUCE:

  1. Tap on URL
  2. ‘Open With’ Dialog displayed

EXPECTED RESULT:

If the URL has been placed on the Home Screen app grid by the default SFOS web browser then the system should assume that that same app will be used to later open it (or at least whatever the default web browser or app has been set to open that mime type).

Functionality should return to the pre 4.3 behaviour, requiring only a single tap top open the link like any other app on the app grid requires.

ACTUAL RESULT:

An extra, unnecessary, step has been introduced with 4.3 to select an appropriate app to open a web page.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

(Please ALWAYS attach relevant data such as logs, screenshots, etc…)

2 Likes
Community meeting on IRC 12th January 2023
#2

Isn’t this a copy / follow-up of this

one?

As I do not experience that - having no other browser option installed.

–
oh, and we do not have the option to set one app as the default for browsing / …erm, nothing else (having had in mind other alternatives for mail, calendar…)

#3

No.

1 Like
#4

No, I don’t think so. My bug is more about the regression in functionality in release 4.3.

1 Like
#5

Thanks for the bug report @Steve_Everett. Intuitively this makes perfect sense, but it’s a tricky one because it potentially overlaps with functionality to set a default app to use for certain MIME types. The latter isn’t currently supported, but arguably might be a better fix overall. I’ve created an internal report about this for discussion, and if there’s more to share on it I’ll do my best to post it here.

2 Likes
#6

Thanks for the update. At least there must be some way of refining the ‘Open With’ functionality though as, for example, being provided with a list of apps alongside the browser app that can’t actually open web pages seems a little messy and pointless. If you do select one of these apps then, depending upon the app, it almost always crashes or hangs (presumably because it is being fed a web page and not the data in a format it can cope with). Sometimes, depending on what other apps you have installed, the browser isn’t even the top option presented in the ‘Open With’ dialog, but burried somewhere in the middle.

#7

Yes, I agree. I guess there are a number of issues. Allowing a default to be set would be really useful, but also there may be some issues with the apps themselves.

Which apps do you find listed there out of interest? It could be that some could be refined.

#8

Jupii (music streamer) is a current example, but there were others back in 2021 when I reported the bug and which I have since uninstalled for whatever reason.

#9

Thanks. I’ll take a look at Jupii. If you or anyone else recalls others, please do post them so we can take a look.

#10

It is perhaps possible to tinker /usr/share/applications/mimeinfo.cache In order to modify the ‘open with’ choices.
Maybe by commenting or deleting the unwanted apps lines. (after having backed the file up)

#11

You could but that gets rebuilt based on .desktop files, so you’d have to go through all of those and remove MimeType entries there to get that to stick

1 Like
#12

Jupii is being naughty and installing an extra desktop file explicitly claiming http support:

I realized this because i recently updated it over OpenRepos for the first time, and only now i got the problem.

It is clearly the app at fault here.
But some more documentation on what is proper would surely help, because lots and lots of apps used to do this…

2 Likes
#13

You call that naughty?

Wait til you see Android applications hijack^Wclaim MIME type associations

:slight_smile:

#14

You call THAT naughty. Install chrome and watch it steal the application/pdf mimetype! Every bloody update (ubuntu 22, currently). xdg-mime to the rescue.

EDIT: I haven’t thought to try this on the phone yet but maybe someone knows if this works (should?!):

xdg-mime query default application/pdf
xdg-mime default whatever.desktop application/pdf

#15

Just edit the .desktop file in ~/.local/share/applications/:

  1. change type Link to Application
  2. change URL=http
    to
    Exec=sailfish-browser http
1 Like