4 Browser Switchboard is a program which allows you to choose which
5 browser to use as the default browser. It supports MicroB, Tear,
6 Fennec/Mobile Firefox, and Midori out of the box, and can also be used
7 to launch MicroB without having browserd running.
11 Binary packages and source are available for download from the project
12 page on garage.maemo.org: https://garage.maemo.org/frs/?group_id=1159
16 1. Download the binary package: browser-switchboard_X.Y-Z_all.deb
17 (where X.Y-Z is the version number, of course).
18 2. If you're using a Maemo 5 device, make sure all your MicroB browser
20 3. Install the package using the Application Manager (open the
21 Application Manager, then select Application->Install from file in the
24 You can now select the default browser by using the Browser Switchboard
25 applet in the Control Panel. Links in most applications, locally-saved
26 web pages opened from the file manager, and (for Maemo 4.x) entries in
27 the Web sidebar panel will open in the browser that you select as the
28 default. Opening the "Web" menu entry and running "browser" from the
29 shell will also cause your chosen default browser to open. If you don't
30 configure a default browser, MicroB will continue to be used as the
33 No matter which browser you select as the default, MicroB can always be
34 opened via the MicroB menu entry in the applications menu (for Maemo
35 4.x, installed in the Extras menu by default), or by running "microb"
36 from the shell. While MicroB is open, it will receive all links from
37 other applications; closing MicroB will restore your chosen default
40 If you experience trouble after installing the package, try rebooting
41 your device. If that fixes things, please report this as a bug.
44 Configuring the Default Browser by Hand:
46 If for some reason, you don't want to use the Control Panel applet to
47 configure Browser Switchboard, you can create the configuration file by
48 hand from a shell. Run the following (where $ is your prompt, not
51 $ cat > $HOME/.config/browser-switchboard <<EOF
52 default_browser = "your_browser"
55 where your_browser can be one of "tear", "microb", "fennec", "midori",
56 or "other" (see below for more on the "other" option). You can of
57 course also edit the $HOME/.config/browser-switchboard file with your
60 To restore the default behavior, just delete the config file:
62 $ rm $HOME/.config/browser-switchboard
65 Advanced Configuration:
67 Here's a more complete sample configuration file:
69 # BEGIN SAMPLE CONFIG FILE
71 # continuous_mode: 0 -- close after handling a request; 1 -- run
72 # continuously in the background
74 # default_browser: "tear", "microb", "fennec", "midori", or "other"
75 default_browser = "tear"
76 # other_browser_cmd: If default browser is "other", what program
77 # to run (%s will be replaced by URI)
78 #other_browser_cmd = "some_browser %s"
79 # logging: Where log output should go: "stdout", "syslog", "none"
81 # autostart_microb: Fremantle only: whether MicroB should be
82 # prestarted in the background: 0 -- never prestart MicroB; 1 -- always
83 # prestart MicroB; -1 -- only prestart MicroB when MicroB is the default
84 # browser (default behavior if unset)
86 # END SAMPLE CONFIG FILE
88 Lines beginning with # characters are comments and are ignored by the
89 script. [Most options correspond directly to an option or option group
90 in the configuration UI.]
92 In continuous mode, Browser Switchboard keeps running in the background
93 instead of closing after handling each request. This saves a bit of
94 startup time for each link (on my N800 running Diablo), but costs you
95 about 100 KB extra memory. Continuous mode is disabled by default; set
96 continuous_mode to 1 to enable. [This option corresponds to the
97 "Optimize Browser Switchboard for" option group in the UI; "Lower memory
98 usage" corresponds to continuous_mode off, while "Faster browser startup
99 time" corresponds to continuous_mode on.]
101 The "tear", "microb", "fennec", and "midori" options for default_browser
102 should be self-explanatory. [These correspond to the options in the
103 "Default browser" combo box in the UI.]
105 If the default browser is "other", Browser Switchboard will run the
106 program specified in other_browser_cmd as the default browser, with a
107 URI replacing the %s on the command line; for example, if
108 other_browser_cmd is set to "some_browser %s", and Browser Switchboard
109 is asked to load http://www.google.com/, it will perform the equivalent
112 $ some_browser 'http://www.google.com/'
114 at a shell. [In the UI, setting "Default brower" to "Other" activates
115 the "Command (%s for URI)" setting, which corresponds to the value of
118 The logging option controls where Browser Switchboard sends its debug
119 logging output to. You should not need to change this unless you're
120 debugging Browser Switchboard, and there is no UI for this option. The
121 default option is "stdout", which means you won't see output unless you
122 run Browser Switchboard from the shell. "syslog" will send the output
123 to the system log (assuming you have a syslogd set up on your device),
124 and "none" disables debug logging entirely.
126 On Fremantle only, autostart_microb controls whether MicroB is
127 prestarted when the device boots. By default, MicroB is prestarted only
128 when MicroB is set as the default browser; you can force MicroB to
129 always prestart by setting autostart_microb = 1, while you can force it
130 to never prestart by setting autostart_microb = 0. [This option has no
131 corresponding UI at the moment.]
134 Browser Switchboard and MicroB's browserd:
136 MicroB uses a background process called browserd to decrease its load
137 time. Browser Switchboard knows how to launch MicroB without having
138 browserd running all the time, so if you don't plan on using MicroB
139 often, you can disable browserd (for example, by using the
140 maemo-control-services control panel applet available in Maemo Extras to
141 disable tablet-browser-daemon). This will save you about 1 MB of
142 memory, but add a few seconds to MicroB's load time.
145 Uninstalling Browser Switchboard:
147 Remove the Browser Switchboard package using the Application Manager,
148 and everything should be back to normal. If you experience problems
149 after uninstalling, try restarting your device first; if that fixes
150 things, please report this as a bug.
153 Compiling Browser Switchboard:
155 If for some reason you don't want to use the prebuilt binary package to
156 install Browser Switchboard, you can compile and install by hand:
157 1. You will need a copy of the SDK for your device. Make sure the
158 following packages are installed: libdbus-glib-1-dev for
159 browser-switchboard; libdbus-1-dev, libgtk2.0-dev, libhildon1-dev,
160 hildon-control-panel-dev for the config UI.
161 2. Download the source tarball: browser-switchboard_X.Y.orig.tar.gz
162 3. Unpack the source tarball in your SDK install:
164 SDK$ tar -xvzf browser-switchboard_X.Y.orig.tar.gz
165 SDK$ cd browser-switchboard-X.Y
170 SDK$ make -C config-ui diablo-plugin
172 (Replace "diablo" with "fremantle" and "diablo-plugin" with
173 "fremantle-plugin" if compiling for Fremantle.
175 If you want the standalone config application instead of the Control
177 SDK$ make -C config-ui diablo-hildon-app
180 If you're using the Scratchbox2-based SDK+, you want
184 5. Install to a temporary directory, and tar up the result:
186 SDK$ make DESTDIR=temp install
187 SDK$ make -C config-ui install
189 SDK$ tar cf stuff.tar .
191 6. As root on your device, move files that will be replaced in the
192 install process out of the way:
194 DEVICE# mv /usr/share/dbus-1/services/com.nokia.osso_browser.service
195 /usr/share/dbus-1/services/com.nokia.osso_browser.bak
196 DEVICE# mv /usr/bin/browser /usr/bin/browser.bak
198 7. Copy the tar file from step 5 to your device, and as root, unpack it
199 in the root directory of your device:
202 DEVICE# tar xf /path/to/stuff.tar
204 To uninstall, remove the files you installed, restore the backup copies,
205 and reboot your device.
208 Bug Reports and Patches:
210 Bug reports, patches, and suggested improvements can either be sent to
211 the maintainer via email (see below) or posted in the Tear thread on the
212 talk.maemo.org forums (http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=28539).
215 Source Code Repository:
217 Source code is hosted in a Git (http://git-scm.com/) repository on
218 git.maemo.org. You can get a copy of the current development version by
219 cloning the repository:
221 $ git clone http://git.maemo.org/projects/browser-switch
223 or you can browse the source using gitweb
224 (http://git.maemo.org/projects/browser-switch/?p=browser-switch;a=summary).
229 Steven Luo <steven+maemo@steven676.net> is the primary maintainer, with
230 Jason Simpson (the original developer) assisting in development.
235 Browser Switchboard is available under the terms of the GNU General
236 Public License (GPL), version 2 or later (see the file LICENSE in the