Type=Webapp

[Giles Atkinson]

Genghis,

I have been thinking about this some more, and I think the extension of Type=Link is
probably not needed.  I can not see how it can do anything that can not be done
with Type=Exec and a small shell script.   That will also be more portable, as the
behaviour of destkop files varies among desktop environments.

As far as I can tell, Type=Link is itself redundant.  I can see no difference in behaviour
between these two desktop files:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Link
Name=Link to BBC
URL=http://www.bbc.co.uk
Icon=BBC

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Exec
Name=Link to BBC
Exec=xdg-open http://www.bbc.co.uk
Icon=BBC

My guess is that Type=Link was defined before the xdg-utils programs.

Giles

-----Original Message-----
From: Genghis Khan [mailto:genghiskhan at gmx.ca] 
Sent: 17 February 2016 11:49 AM
To: xdg at lists.freedesktop.org
Cc: Giles Atkinson
Subject: Re: RE: RE: RE: RE: Type=Webapp

Hello Giles,

I have opened a bug report for xdg-app.
I could not add your email address to CC.

See https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=94191

> Sent: Saturday, January 23, 2016 at 1:45 PM
> From: "Genghis Khan" <genghiskhan at gmx.ca>
> To: "xdg at lists.freedesktop.org" <xdg at lists.freedesktop.org>
> Subject: Re: RE: RE: RE: RE: Type=Webapp
>
> 
> 
> > Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 2016 at 8:43 PM
> > From: "Giles Atkinson" <Giles.Atkinson at citrix.com>
> > To: "'Genghis Khan'" <genghiskhan at gmx.ca>
> > Cc: "xdg at lists.freedesktop.org" <xdg at lists.freedesktop.org>
> > Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: Type=Webapp
> >
> > Genghis,
> > 
> > I think it is not completely defined yet, as the handling of
> > parameters may be more complex than it looks.  Since the desktop file
> > will be claiming one or more URI schemes, it must be able to handle
> > complete URIs of those schemes.  But your original proposal was to
> > handle URI fragments, and format them into a template URI.  The
> > template for complete URIs may need to be different to that for
> > fragments.  I think that could be handled by allowing multiple Link
> > lines with different substitution keys:
> > 
> >  [Desktop Entry]
> > Version=1.1
> > Type=Link
> > NoDisplay=false
> > Name=KiwiIRC
> > Comment=Chat over the Internet Relay Chat network
> > Link=https://irc.freedesktop.org/server/%u
> > Link=https://irc.freedesktop.org/handle/%s
> > Icon=kiwiirc
> > MimeType=x-scheme-handler/irc;
> > Actions=Nickname;Register;MOTD; #actions might be useful
> > 
> > Here '%s' is a fragment substitution.  The desktop software must
> > parse the string it is given to see if it is a valid URI for a scheme
> > that the Desktop File claims.  If so, it looks for a Link line with
> > %u substitution.  Othersise it looks for one with %s.
> > 
> > It would also be good to handle ordinary MIME types and file data.
> > But I think that will require a new spec for a method to pass a URI
> > and file(s) to a browser, with the files becoming default uploads if
> > the page requests them.
> > 
> > Does this make sense?
> > 
> 
> I don't know.
> 
> I suggest to open a bug report for enhancement, and discuss everything
> on the bug tracker.
> 
> > Giles