[sclug] Mailto in Firefox not working - what to do?

Fri Sep 16 10:02:37 UTC 2005

Neil Haughton wrote:
> Are there any Firefox/html gurus out there? I find that mailto doesn't 
> work in Firefox on my machine (I'm using Thunderbird as my MUA, but I 
> have kmail installed as well). I can't find any Firefox settings that 
> pertain to mailing from a web page, in the Preferences or in the 
> about:config page, and it's annoying me.

Much as I like Firefox, there are some really rough bits round the 
edges, and this is one of 'em.

Go to about:config, right-click for new string.

Name: network.protocol-handler.app.mailto
Value: path to your thunderbird; eg. /opt/thunderbird/thunderbird

Restart firefox just to make sure. After that, the following simpler 
example ought to work (page reproduced complete):

<html>
<head>
<title>Mailto test</title>
</head>

<body>

<p>
<a 
href="mailto:somebody at nowhere.example.com?Subject=You%20have%20spam.">Spam 
me</a>
</p>

</body>
</html>

Once that works, try the basic form, without all the javascript 
nastiness - I know HTML, but not much javascript (which can also be said 
of many of the coders who produce pages containing javascript - 
cargo-cult copy-n-paste is rife, and inter-browser interoperability is 
highly problematic.)

HTH

Will.