BROWSER SWITCHBOARD
+version 3.3
Browser Switchboard is a program which allows you to choose which
browser to use as the default browser. It supports MicroB, Tear,
-Fennec/Mobile Firefox, and Midori out of the box, and can also be used
-to launch MicroB without having browserd running.
+Mobile Firefox, Opera Mobile, and Midori out of the box, and can also be
+used to launch MicroB without having browserd running. A Control Panel
+applet to choose the default browser is provided.
Download:
Application Manager, then select Application->Install from file in the
menu).
-If Tear (http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=28539) is installed,
-it should now be the default browser, meaning that links in most
-applications, locally-saved web pages opened in the file manager, and
-entries in the Web sidebar panel should now open in Tear. If Tear isn't
-installed, MicroB will be used as the default browser; keep reading to
-see how to change the default browser to something else.
-
-MicroB can always be opened via the Web menu entry in the applications
-panel (located in the Internet menu by default), or by running "browser"
+You can now select the default browser by using the Browser Switchboard
+applet in the Control Panel. Links in most applications, locally-saved
+web pages opened from the file manager, and (for Maemo 4.x) entries in
+the Web sidebar panel will open in the browser that you select as the
+default. Opening the "Web" menu entry and running "browser" from the
+shell will also cause your chosen default browser to open. If you don't
+configure a default browser, MicroB will continue to be used as the
+default browser.
+
+No matter which browser you select as the default, MicroB can always be
+opened via the MicroB menu entry in the applications menu (for Maemo
+4.x, installed in the Extras menu by default), or by running "microb"
from the shell. While MicroB is open, it will receive all links from
other applications; closing MicroB will restore your chosen default
browser.
-Some users have reported that a restart may be necessary to ensure that
-Browser Switchboard is functioning. If you experience trouble after
-installing the package, try rebooting your device first.
+If you experience trouble after installing the package, try rebooting
+your device. If that fixes things, please report this as a bug.
-Changing the Default Browser:
+Configuring the Default Browser by Hand:
-By default, Tear is used as the default browser if installed (otherwise
-MicroB is the default browser). To change this behavior, you need to
-create a configuration file (from the shell for now -- a configuration
-UI is in the works). From a shell on your device (xterm, SSH, or
-similar), run the following (where $ is your prompt, not something you
-type):
+If for some reason, you don't want to use the Control Panel applet to
+configure Browser Switchboard, you can create the configuration file by
+hand from a shell. Run the following (where $ is your prompt, not
+something you type):
$ cat > $HOME/.config/browser-switchboard <<EOF
default_browser = "your_browser"
EOF
-where your_browser can be one of "tear", "microb", "fennec", "midori",
-or "other" (see below for more on the "other" option). You can of
-course also edit the $HOME/.config/browser-switchboard file with your
+where your_browser can be one of "tear", "microb", "fennec", "opera",
+"midori" or "other" (see below for more on the "other" option). You can
+of course also edit the $HOME/.config/browser-switchboard file with your
favorite text editor.
To restore the default behavior, just delete the config file:
# BEGIN SAMPLE CONFIG FILE
# This is a comment
# continuous_mode: 0 -- close after handling a request; 1 -- run
-# continuously in the background
-continuous_mode = 0
-# default_browser: "tear", "microb", "fennec", "midori", or "other"
+# continuously in the background (default)
+# On Fremantle, this is forced to 1 regardless of config setting
+continuous_mode = 1
+# default_browser: "tear", "microb", "fennec", "midori", "opera" or
+# "other"
default_browser = "tear"
# other_browser_cmd: If default browser is "other", what program
# to run (%s will be replaced by URI)
#other_browser_cmd = "some_browser %s"
+# logging: Where log output should go: "stdout", "syslog", "none"
+#logging = "stdout"
+# autostart_microb: Fremantle only: whether MicroB should be
+# prestarted in the background: 0 -- never prestart MicroB; 1 -- always
+# prestart MicroB; -1 -- only prestart MicroB when MicroB is the default
+# browser (default behavior if unset)
+#autostart_microb = 0
# END SAMPLE CONFIG FILE
Lines beginning with # characters are comments and are ignored by the
-script.
+script. [Most options correspond directly to an option or option group
+in the configuration UI.]
In continuous mode, Browser Switchboard keeps running in the background
-instead of closing after handling each request. This saves roughly two
-seconds of startup time for each link (on my N800 running Diablo), but
-costs you about 2 MB extra memory. Continuous mode is disabled by
-default; set continuous_mode to 1 to enable.
-
-The "tear", "microb", "fennec", and "midori" options for default_browser
-should be self-explanatory.
+instead of closing after handling each request. This saves a bit of
+startup time for each link (on my N800 running Diablo), but costs you
+about 150 KB extra memory. Continuous mode is enabled by default; set
+continuous_mode to 0 to enable. On Fremantle, continuous mode is always
+enabled regardless of the value of this config setting, to provide
+better compatibility with MicroB's behavior. [This option corresponds
+to the "Optimize Browser Switchboard for" option group in the UI; "Lower
+memory usage" corresponds to continuous_mode off, while "Faster browser
+startup time" corresponds to continuous_mode on.]
+
+The "tear", "microb", "fennec", "opera" and "midori" options for
+default_browser should be self-explanatory. [These correspond to the
+options in the "Default browser" combo box in the UI.]
If the default browser is "other", Browser Switchboard will run the
program specified in other_browser_cmd as the default browser, with a
$ some_browser 'http://www.google.com/'
-at a shell.
+at a shell. [In the UI, setting "Default brower" to "Other" activates
+the "Command (%s for URI)" setting, which corresponds to the value of
+other_browser_cmd.]
+
+The logging option controls where Browser Switchboard sends its debug
+logging output to. You should not need to change this unless you're
+debugging Browser Switchboard, and there is no UI for this option. The
+default option is "stdout", which means you won't see output unless you
+run Browser Switchboard from the shell. "syslog" will send the output
+to the system log (assuming you have a syslogd set up on your device),
+and "none" disables debug logging entirely.
+
+On Fremantle only, autostart_microb controls whether MicroB is
+prestarted when the device boots and whether the MicroB browser process
+is left running when no browser windows are open. By default, MicroB is
+prestarted (and the process left open when no browser windows are open)
+only when MicroB is set as the default browser; you can force MicroB to
+always prestart by setting autostart_microb = 1, while you can force it
+to never prestart by setting autostart_microb = 0. [This option has no
+corresponding UI at the moment.]
+
+
+The browser-switchboard-config Command-Line Configuration Tool:
+
+A command-line configuration utility is provided to allow programs and
+scripts to query and set Browser Switchboard configuration variables.
+For example,
+
+$ browser-switchboard-config -b
+
+will display the default browser, and
+
+$ browser-switchboard-config -s -b "opera"
+
+will set the default browser to Opera Mobile. See the help output from
+running browser-switchboard-config with no arguments for more
+information.
+
+The primary purpose of this tool is to allow browser vendors to provide
+an option in their browsers to set themselves as the default browser,
+via something like this (shell-like pseudocode):
+
+if [ -x /usr/bin/browser-switchboard-config ]; then
+ if [ `browser-switchboard-config -b` = "mybrowser" ]; then
+ display "MyBrowser is the default browser."
+ else
+ button "Make MyBrowser the default browser"
+ action "browser-switchboard-config -s -b mybrowser"
+ fi
+else
+ display "Install Browser Switchboard to make MyBrowser the default browser"
+fi
+
+Browser vendors: setting yourself as the default browser without
+prompting the user first (via package maintainer scripts, for example)
+is strongly discouraged.
Browser Switchboard and MicroB's browserd:
Uninstalling Browser Switchboard:
Remove the Browser Switchboard package using the Application Manager,
-and everything should be back to normal. A reboot may be necessary for
-changes to take effect -- if you experience problems, try restarting
-your device first.
+and everything should be back to normal. If you experience problems
+after uninstalling, try restarting your device first; if that fixes
+things, please report this as a bug.
-Manual Installation:
+Compiling Browser Switchboard:
-If for some reason you don't want to use the binary package to install
-Browser Switchboard, you can install it by hand:
-1. Make sure you have the necessary dependencies installed: packages
-python2.5, python2.5-dbus, and python-2.5-gobject.
+If for some reason you don't want to use the prebuilt binary package to
+install Browser Switchboard, you can compile and install by hand:
+1. You will need a copy of the SDK for your device. Make sure the
+following packages are installed: libdbus-glib-1-dev for
+browser-switchboard; libdbus-1-dev, libgtk2.0-dev, libhildon1-dev,
+hildon-control-panel-dev for the config UI.
2. Download the source tarball: browser-switchboard_X.Y.orig.tar.gz
-3. Unpack the source tarball on your device:
+3. Unpack the source tarball in your SDK install:
+
+SDK$ tar -xvzf browser-switchboard_X.Y.orig.tar.gz
+SDK$ cd browser-switchboard-X.Y
+
+4. Compile:
+
+SDK$ make diablo
+SDK$ make -C config-ui diablo-plugin util
+
+(Replace "diablo" with "fremantle", "diablo-plugin" with
+"fremantle-plugin" and "util" with "fremantle-util" if compiling for
+Fremantle.
+
+If you want the standalone config application instead of the Control
+Panel plugin, do
+SDK$ make -C config-ui diablo-hildon-app
+instead.
+
+If you're using the Scratchbox2-based SDK+, you want
+SDK+$ sb2 make
+etc. as usual.)
-$ tar -xvzf browser-switchboard_X.Y.orig.tar.gz
-$ cd browser-switchboard-X.Y
+5. Install to a temporary directory, and tar up the result:
-4. As root on your device, copy the browser-switchboard script to
-/usr/bin:
+SDK$ make DESTDIR=temp install
+SDK$ make DESTDIR=temp -C config-ui install
+SDK$ cd temp
+SDK$ tar cf stuff.tar .
-# cp browser-switchboard /usr/bin
+(On Fremantle, add a
+SDK$ make DESTDIR=temp install-xsession-script
+before creating the tarball.)
-(where # represents a root shell prompt).
-5. As root on your device, copy com.nokia.osso_browser.service to
-/usr/share/dbus-1/services, moving the existing file out of the way
-first:
+6. As root on your device, move files that will be replaced in the
+install process out of the way:
-# mv /usr/share/dbus-1/services/com.nokia.osso_browser.service
+DEVICE# mv /usr/share/dbus-1/services/com.nokia.osso_browser.service
/usr/share/dbus-1/services/com.nokia.osso_browser.bak
-# cp com.nokia.osso_browser.service /usr/share/dbus-1/services
+DEVICE# mv /usr/bin/browser /usr/bin/browser.bak
-6. (optional) If you want running "browser" from the command line to
-work as intended, copy browser to /usr/bin, moving the original symlink
-out of the way first:
+7. Copy the tar file from step 5 to your device, and as root, unpack it
+in the root directory of your device:
-# mv /usr/bin/browser /usr/bin/browser.bak
-# cp browser /usr/bin
+DEVICE# cd /
+DEVICE# tar xf /path/to/stuff.tar
To uninstall, remove the files you installed, restore the backup copies,
and reboot your device.
git.maemo.org. You can get a copy of the current development version by
cloning the repository:
-$ git clone https://git.maemo.org/projects/browser-switch
+$ git clone http://git.maemo.org/projects/browser-switch
or you can browse the source using gitweb
-(https://git.maemo.org/projects/browser-switch/?p=browser-switch;a=summary).
+(http://git.maemo.org/projects/browser-switch/?p=browser-switch;a=summary).
Maintainer:
projects / browser-switch / blobdiff