Function `browse-url-mozilla' in browse-url.el

[Bodo Schulze]

This bug report will be sent to the Free Software Foundation,
not to your local site managers!
Please write in English, because the Emacs maintainers do not have
translators to read other languages for them.

Your bug report will be posted to the bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org mailing list,
and to the gnu.emacs.bug news group.

In GNU Emacs 21.2.1 (i386-debian-linux-gnu, X toolkit, Xaw3d scroll bars)
 of 2002-03-22 on raven, modified by Debian
configured using `configure  i386-debian-linux-gnu --prefix=/usr 
--sharedstatedir=/var/lib --libexecdir=/usr/lib --localstatedir=/var/lib 
--infodir=/usr/share/info --mandir=/usr/share/man --with-pop=yes --with-x=yes 
--with-x-toolkit=athena --without-gif'
Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: C
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: de_DE
  locale-coding-system: iso-latin-1
  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

Please describe exactly what actions triggered the bug
and the precise symptoms of the bug:

Dear Emacs hackers,

placing point on the string
"file:///usr/local/doc/HOWTO/Text-Terminal-HOWTO-9.html" in a buffer
being in text-mode, I get a "Wrong type argument: stringp, nil" error when 
calling
`browse-url-mozilla'. (I use Mozilla version 1.0.0)

In browse-url.el, I placed an edebug-defun break after the closing
parenthesis of the `append' form in defun `browse-url-mozilla'


         (process (apply 'start-process
                         (concat "mozilla " url) nil
                         browse-url-mozilla-program
                         (append
                          browse-url-mozilla-arguments
                          (list "-remote")
                          (list "openurl("
                                url
                                (if new-window ",new-window")
                                ")"))!)))
                                     ^
                                     break

and get this result in *Messages*

Break Result: ("-remote" 
"openurl(""file:///usr/local/doc/HOWTO/Text-Terminal-HOWTO-9.html" nil ")")
Go...  
edebug-signal: Wrong type argument: stringp, nil

I guess it's the 'nil' that produces the stringp error.
Also correcting this by adding the empty string in the ELSE branch
of the IF, like this

   (if new-window ",new-window" "")

does not do the job, since the argument passed to the -remote Option
must not be a list, but a string.  Here is a patch that I found
to correct the error.


*** browse-url.el.orig  Sat Aug  9 19:58:27 2003
--- browse-url.el       Sat Aug  9 19:58:27 2003
***************
*** 849,859 ****
                         browse-url-mozilla-program
                         (append
                          browse-url-mozilla-arguments
!                         (list "-remote")
!                         (list "openurl("
!                               url
!                               (if new-window ",new-window")
!                               ")")))))
      (set-process-sentinel process
                          `(lambda (process change)
                             (browse-url-mozilla-sentinel process ,url)))))
--- 849,863 ----
                         browse-url-mozilla-program
                         (append
                          browse-url-mozilla-arguments
!                         (list "-remote"
!                               ;; The following should not be a list but a 
string,
!                               ;; so the ELSE-Branch must not be nil but the
!                               ;; empty string
!                               (concat
!                                "openurl(" url
!                                (if new-window ",new-window" "")
!                                ")"))))))
      (set-process-sentinel process
                          `(lambda (process change)
                             (browse-url-mozilla-sentinel process ,url)))))

Hope this may help.

Additional remark:

As of version 1.0.1, 1.1 and beyond, Mozilla also supports the option 'new-tab'.

Mozilla-Help on -remote option

*openURL (/URL/, new-window)*
      Creates a new window displaying the specified document. 

*openURL (/URL/, new-tab)*
          Creates a new tab displaying the specified document.
      /(Available in 1.0.1, 1.1 and beyond)/ 

Emacs just knows the flag `browse-url-new-window-flag'.  Should there
be an additional flag `browse-url-new-tab-flag'?.  

Best regards,
Bodo Schulze

Recent messages:
edebug-signal: 
Loading debug...done
Entering debugger...
 [2 times]
Break
Result: ("-remote" "openurl(" 
"file:///usr/local/doc/HOWTO/Text-Terminal-HOWTO-9.html" nil ")")
Go...
edebug-signal: Wrong type argument: stringp, nil
Mark set
Loading emacsbug...done