Quoting original submitter: ----- I noticed that claws always opens in Epiphany regardless of what the user has selected as their default browser (in GNOME, not sure what happens in other DEs). This is because of the patch to always use x-www-browser, which doesn't DTRT WRT user selected defaults. The patch that I'm attaching (which I uploaded to Ubuntu Karmic too) switches to use xdg-open which does do the correct thing and will work across DEs too. ----- Using xdg-open by default would obsolete the current patch for x-www-browser (and this patch also would be unnecessary).
There already is a pref "Use system defaults if possible" which uses xdg-open if it's in the $PATH. We introduced this preference in 3.2.0 (December 2007) and kept it OFF by default to avoid changing the default behaviour when users upgraded. Maybe we could now switch in to ON by default, given that most of our users have upgraded during this year-and-a-half. I think a few default behaviour changes when upgrading 5 major versions (3.3, 3.4,3.5, 3.6, 3.7) is acceptable.
Changes related to this bug have been committed. Please check latest CVS and update the bug accordingly. You can also get the patch from: http://www.colino.net/claws-mail/ 2009-07-01 [colin] 3.7.1cvs84 * src/prefs_common.c Fix bug 1940, 'Doesn't open links in user's default browser'. Turn the preference to TRUE by default; that will only change the behaviour for new users.