Major annoyance: clicking on mailto links in Firefox doesn't open the email app I want to use, KMail.
Another related major annoyance: going to File > Send Link in Firefox doesn't open the email app I want
to use, KMail. The solution? Find your profile folder for Firefox; more than likely you'll find it at
/home/[username]/.mozilla/firefox/[random-letters-n-numbers]/. In that folder, if you have a file named
user.js, open it with a text editor; otherwise, create it and open it with a text editor. Add the
following lines:
// File > Send Link uses Kmail
user_pref("network.protocol-handler.app.mailto","kmailservice");
The 1st line is a comment describing what we're doing; the 2nd line performs the magic. Save & close
user.js, restart Firefox, go to a web page, and choose File > Send Link. An email message
using KMail should open. Ahhhhh!
(And yes, I wrote a book about Firefox - Don't Click on the Blue E!: Switching to Firefox - that you might find interesting.)
1. Just about Scott,
If you observe the warning in the pref.js file. Do not hand edit the file. (At least in 1.0.x of fx (aka firefox)), your changes can be overwriten when you exit fx. So what is the pref way?
Enter "about:config" (less the ") into the url field of fx, this will bring up the config & perf data for your browser. Right click on open space and select New -> String. This opens up a name box and entry field where you put;
"network.protocol-handler.app.mailto" (less the ")
Then after you hit enter, it opens up the string box were you will now put;
"kmailservice" (less the ")
Then restart your browser.
I know it very similar, however as a sys-admin asking people to hand-bomb files without understanding what they are really doing is a door to disaster. The facilities exist in the browser so it should be used as the development team designed it.
By the way this will work if Kontact, Kmail is running or not, even if you use kwallet. Very nice. Also you can click directly on the mailto link without any problems or need to got to File -> Send Link.
Posted at 12:28PM on Jun 7th 2006 by Karl Raffelsieper