View source for Make external programs in Linux use the right browser

{{update}}
As of 2010, Firefox and SeaMonkey seem do the right thing (open a new tab in a running instance) if you just start the application shell and pass it a URL.

And most Linux distributions for end-users have a system setting for default Web application or default text/html mime handler that you can set to Firefox; this often happens automatically through a .desktop file (possibly in /usr/share/applications or $HOME/.local/share/applications) giving the details of the browser, how to start it, and the file types it can handle.

== Older approach ==

Configure each external program to pass the URL to this Bourne shell script:

 #!/bin/sh
 #
 # This script allows external apps to open new URLs in Firefox
 # or open a new instance of Firefox if it isn't already started
 #
 /path/to/firefox/firefox -a firefox -remote "openURL($@,new-tab)" ||
 exec /path/to/firefox/firefox "$@";

This shell script takes advantage of the Mozilla IPC protocol to either open the external URL in an already active Firefox instance, or start a new instance of Firefox.

To make this script work with Mozilla, replace all instances of "firefox" with "mozilla".

[[Category:Integration with external applications - browser]]
[[Category:Linux]]