App.setAsDefaultProtocolClient for Linux

[atypicalprogrammer]

What is the reason App.setAsDefaultProtocolClient()is not available for Linux? I was under the impression this is possible, but requires different solutions for different distros.

[anaisbetts]

On Linux this is declared in your .desktop file, which is something you set up at install-time, not something you can toggle. I could be full of it on this though, there might be a way to register for this dynamically

[zcbenz]

It can be done with xdg-settings, and Chromium uses it in shell_integration_linux.cc:
https://cs.chromium.org/chromium/src/chrome/browser/shell_integration_linux.cc?sq=package:chromium

[atypicalprogrammer]

@paulcbetts For windows it should be done on install too.. But that doesn't mean this API call shouldn't be available. Right now we just do it on first run.

[anaisbetts]

@atypicalprogrammer I'm not saying what people should do, I'm saying what I (incorrectly) believed was possible

[baconbrad]

@zcbenz @atypicalprogrammer A possible solution might be checking for gnome-open, exo-open, xdg-open, gvfs-open, or kde-open and using which ever is available. You could never guarantee support for all Linux distros but you can hopefully target common desktop environments.

[bengotow]

Just as a sidenote, we've been using xdg-mime default to make N1 the default mail client on Linux and it's been working fairly well for folks. Would definitely be nice to push it upstream. nylas/nylas-mail@43e9b4c

[baconbrad]

@bengotow Mime type handlers and protocol handlers are two different things.

[bengotow]

Yep! I'm aware - the full command we use in that commit above is xdg-mime default nylas.desktop x-scheme-handler/#{scheme}. I only bring it up because it has been successfully making N1 the default handler for the mailto protocol on Debian systems and might be more broadly incorporated into Electron.

[atypicalprogrammer]

Any updates on this by anyone?

[Eugeny]

This can also be done by editing the file directly: https://askubuntu.com/questions/514125/url-protocol-handlers-in-basic-ubuntu-desktop

[hron84]

@baconbrad Not neccessarily. On Linux, proto handlers are also handled via - special - MIME types.

[codebytere]

This is now in master 🎉