[Portland-bugs] [Bug 59104] xdg-open doesn't honor $BROWSER in "generic" environment

[bugzilla-daemon at freedesktop.org]

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=59104

--- Comment #6 from Leho Kraav (:macmaN :lkraav) <leho at kraav.com> ---
OK good to see this issue is already filed. I support the original claim that
if ${BROWSER} is defined, it should be preferred to system mime setup. This is
based on reasoning that if ${BROWSER} is defined, it's there for some reason
and user wants it to be so.

In my workflow, when I launch a secondary X server DISPLAY=:1 on my localhost
for a "comes and goes" USB display, I still want my http link handling take
place on DISPLAY=:0, or laptop screen. This is easily achieved by doing
BROWSER="firefox-display-0" which is a simple oneliner shell script "DISPLAY=:0
firefox-bin $@".

But xdg-open ignores it and therefore launches a new copy of firefox on
DISPLAY=:1, where of course I cannot use my main web browsing profile which is
in use and locked on DISPLAY:=0.

Basically I would have to create some random invalid value in my local
mimeapps.list to make xdg-open fail the .desktop file search and fall back to
$BROWSER. I think that makes less sense from a system integrity standpoint than
what xdg-open implements now - intentionally making things fail to achieve what
you need just doesn't sound right.

Is there something I'm missing in my logic above? Can xdg-open still be
convinced to change its behavior?

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