Use Webapp Manager app for Fastmail as default email

[WineCurmudgeon]

Is this possible? That is, is there a way to use the "app" the manager created for Fastmail, a webmail app, as the default email in both XFCE Mint system settings and in the Firefox application setting for Mailto.

I've tried a half dozen or so things, including using the .desktop file, and nothing works. Most commonly, I get an error that says I'm trying to open Firefox twice. Thanks for your help.

[dave0808]

A big "maybe".

The 'web app' is basically an instance of Firefox with a unique profile.

I could imagine a possible scenario, which would depend on Fastmail... if there is a unique URL to compose a message and supply the recipient address, then it might be possible to create a command, that launches Firefox specifying your WebApp's profile AND the URL to compose the message.

[WineCurmudgeon]

Thanks for this. That's kind of what I thought. But the coding is probably more than I can figure out.

Oddly enough, Fastmail will open email links and use the Firefox "email to" widget in the "app" that is set up, so that sort of works.

So I guess we can mark this solved.

[dave0808]

I was thinking about this and did a bit more digging.

The "mailto" link handling appears to be defined in ~/.config/mimeapp.list - or at least on my system. There is another file with the same name in ~/.local/share/applications which is empty, and a version of the file in ~/.local/share/applications/mimeinfo.cache.

The upshot being that there is a line that starts with x-scheme-handler/mailto where the value is a .desktop file. Mine appears to point to a desktop file that has a comment of "Custom definition for Thunderbird", so it might be something that I created and have subsequently forgotten because I've messed about with running Thunderbird under Firejail and also I use wmctrl to move the window to where I like it to be.

Either way, it should be possible to change the value for the handler to another desktop file, which is a copy of your WebApp for Fastmail, but rather than the Fastmail main URL, use a URL for composing a new email and potentially the email address. I note that the "thunderbird.desktop" file I have passes a %u parameter to Thunderbird. I'd guess that this is for passing the email address, so you could add that to the URL.

You could test it out by tweaking the whole 'Exec' line, so that it echos the line to a file. For example, you might have:-

Code: Select all

Exec=sh -c 'XAPP_FORCE_GTKWINDOW_ICON=firefox.png firefox --class WebApp-Fastmail1234 --profile /home/user/.local/share/ice/firefox/Fastmail1234 --no-remote https://www.fastmail.com/compose/%u'

which could temporarily be changed to:-

Code: Select all

Exec=sh -c 'echo "firefox --class WebApp-Fastmail1234 --profile /home/user/.local/share/ice/firefox/Fastmail1234 --no-remote https://www.fastmail.com/compose/%u" >> /tmp/testinfo.txt'

The try it out and see what is written to the file in /tmp.

[WineCurmudgeon]

Thanks for this. I appreciate your efforts.

I found the mailto line in /.config/mimeapp.list -- it's x-scheme-handler/mailto=userapp-Thunderbird-RRENZ0.desktop

Thunderbird had been my default mail app,

So this where I'm in over my head: What do I change the mailto line to? The second link you posted? And, unfortunately, I'm also not clear about the tmp file thing that you mention.

Thanks again.

[dave0808]

Well, we might be getting ahead of ourselves here. The first thing to check is whether there is a URL that can be used to invoke the "compose new mail" part of Fastmail and can the recipient address also be passed in. Without that, we're shouting into the wind.

[WineCurmudgeon]

Oh, I understand. That has always been the problem. I have tired the Fastmail URL for the inbox, but nothing happens. We don't need to mess with this anymore. Thanks for your help.