Handling mailto in firefox/iceweasel with gnus on linux

[Richard Riley]

(Debian Linux and Gnome btw)

I did some googling around for mailto solutions again recently from
firefox - there are a few different approaches that worked with varying
success on my setup (gnus-posting-styles). I think/hope I have cobbled
other peoples work together and added a little more in a way which might
help others too.

1) Install the mozex add on for firefox. Configure the mail handler with
something along the lines of:

,----
| /on/your/path/gnumail  %a %s
`----

2) create the script gnumail referenced above which takes the mailto and
extract the "to". Borrowed from
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/MailtoHandler

,----
| #!/bin/bash
| mailto=$(printf '%s\n' "$1" | sed -e 's/[\"]/\\&/g')
| elisp_expr=$(printf '(rgr/mailto "%s")' "$mailto")
| 
| emacsclient -c -n \
|         --eval "$elisp_expr" \
|         --eval '(set-window-dedicated-p (selected-window) t)'
| 
`----

3) Add the function to talk to gnus in your .emacs/wherever. This small
function borrowed the completing read from John Sullivan's mailto from a
while ago but also allows a pre-configured one with no prompt. It
detects if Gnus is running and starts it if not.

,----
|
|(setq gnus-default-mailto-group "INBOX.mail")
|
| (defun rgr/mailto (to)
|   "Send an email to 'to' but prompting for a posting style if not configured. 
Starts Gnus if not already running."
|   (unless gnus-active-hashtb (gnus)) ;; Better way??
|   (let ((gnus-newsgroup-name
|          (if gnus-default-mailto-group gnus-default-mailto-group 
(completing-read "Use posting style of group: "
|                           gnus-active-hashtb nil
|                           (gnus-read-active-file-p)))))
|     (compose-mail to)))
`----

And now with the wonders of emacs daemon (my "edit" function is simply
'emacsclient --alternate-editor="" -c $*') gnus pops up in a matter of
milliseconds when I click on a mailto in iceweasel!

cheers,

r.