[Pkg-kde-extras] kmozillahelper -- Iceweasel-KDE integration

[P. J. McDermott]

Sorry for my late response.  I thought the BTS would forward to me
replies to my ITP bug, but it apparently hasn't.

On 03/29/2011 12:32 PM, Aniruddha wrote:
> Can you update us about status of the extension? Thanks!

On 07/31/2011 01:56 PM, Modestas Vainius wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> On sekmadienis 31 Liepa 2011 20:33:33 Rafael Belmonte wrote:
>> Hello, I am mailing, KDE Extras Team, and Mozilla Team because my petition
>> is related to both teams.
>> This is to remember you about the existence of Kmozillahelper or also
>> called firefox-kde-support.
>> This is a package which provides Firefox (or Iceweasel in our case) a
>> better KDE integration and support, adding the following features:
>>
>>     * Getting proxy configuration
>>     * Getting default applications by file extension, type, and protocol
>>     * The "Open with:" dialog
>>     * The file open dialog
>>     * The file save dialog, with KIO network transparency
>>     * The directory selection dialog
>>     * Opening files with default applications
>>     * Running applications
>>     * Opening the default feed reader
>>     * Opening the default mail client
>>     * Opening the default news client
>>     * Checking and setting the default web browser
>>     * Showing KDE notifications on download completions
>>
>> This is already being used in OpenSuse (which is also upstream), and also
>> is used in Kubuntu packaged as "firefox-kde-support".
>> You can find upstream software here:
>> http://gitorious.org/firefox-kde-opensuse
>> And information about the Ubuntu package here:
>> http://packages.ubuntu.com/oneiric/kmozillahelper
>> The Debian Bug #608171 is also related to this matter.
>> The current KDE integration of Iceweasel has a lot to be desired compared
>> with the other mentioned distributions, please consider joining efforts to
>> make it better on Debian KDE desktop.
> 
> Well, personally I would be kind of interested in seeing better iceweasel 
> integration with KDE Platform. However:
> 
> 1) as far as I can tell from #608171, some patch is needed for iceweasel. 
> Unfortunately, iceweasel maintainers do not seem very fond of it. Personally, 
> I'm not willing to invest my time into developing a better patch/solution for 
> iceweasel.
> 
> 2) ITP is already owned by P. J. McDermott. So unless this is a request for 
> sponsorship or take over, I don't see how anybody from KDE maintainers can 
> help here.

Sorry, I don't mean to prevent anyone else from working on this.  I
packaged the helper application back in December, although it was my
first attempt at policy-compliant Debian packaging and may not be
perfect.  Now that I know how to use a version control system (Git),
when I get some time I'll sort out what I've done and try to get it
pushed to Alioth.

The bigger issue is on the Iceweasel side.  This application does
require some shell service code in Iceweasel.  Mike Hommey suggested
making a generic extension (which could work with any Mozilla-based
software, within and outside of Debian) instead of adding a patch to
Iceweasel, and I too think that would be better.  Unfortunately, I've
never written an XUL extension before, so I don't know how much I could
do to that end.  Any help on this matter from Mike or anyone else would
be appreciated.

-- 
P. J. McDermott
mailto:pjm at nac.net | http://identi.ca/pehjota