Hi there,

I am using Kmail and already set swiftfox as default browser under Default Appliations of System Settings.

Whenever I click on a URL inside an email within KMail, it will launch another instance of swiftfox for a while (few seconds) before opening the page in a new tab of the current instance of swiftfox. The new instance is not clickable but reside in the task bar, it will only goes away after a while.

It seems like right click the URL > Copy Address then open new tab and paste the URL seems lot faster.

Any ideas?

Since it works for firefox, konqueror and rekonq, it is probably a problem of swiftfox's execution script.

But isn't swiftfox same as firefox but just different GCC switches during compilation?

It is possible that they have changed the init script (distributions also do that for /real/ firefox).


You can compare the firefox's one with swiftfox's by doing:
diff `which firefox` `which swiftfox`
(if you have them both installed)

You were right. The command output alot of differences. The reason why i use Swiftfox is to have a faster version of Firefox. Furthermore I hate the Kubuntu never replace the firefox with 3.5.x during updates.

You can check (or ask swiftfox makers) whether there is a command to call to open a tab inside an existing window.

Before, the command was something like 'browser -remote www.google.com' * and it would open a new tab. Now, it is a default behaviour for firefox, and command to open a new instance of the browser is 'browser -no-remote'

The other possibility (I've just thought of that) is that you might have an option in the preferences dialogue or about:config page that dictates whether to open a new tab or a window... though I have no idea where that option is and what is the name.


* (I wrote 'browser' and not the real name since netscape, mozilla, seamonkey, firefox ... used something like that)

Well, before I switch to KDE was using Gnome.. I uses a switch of %u after command of swiftfox and it does not launch a separate instance of it (as far i as i see on the taskbar) and open the link in a new tab page.

Back to KDE, under Default Applications > Web Browser, after I chosen Swiftfox in the list of available applications, I do see the command was "swiftfox %u" (see pics).



After selected and click OK all I see is the command only.



If I manually edit and added %u behind, whenever I click on the link in KMail, it will launch a new window with 2 tabs opened on the same page.

I just could not understand what's make the differences.

I will try to make a video of record eventually this is hard to explain my words and pictures.

%u is replaced by the file you're opening so it is not the issue here (that is, don't add the %u here )

When you call
swiftfox www.google.com
from console, does it open a new tab?

If yes, then I have no idea what the problem is - the only thing left that I can think of is that some environment variable doesn't get set properly...

I hope there will be someone who will be able to shed some more light on this subject

Ok, without remove the %u from the first figure above on my previous post, i simply open a konsole and typed:

$ swiftfox http://www.google.com

My existing instance of swiftfox just open a new tab with Google homepage. There is no 2nd instance in the taskbar that I had described earlier.

Does this issue come to a dead end?

UPDATE: Even if i manually remove the %u from the first figure above on my previous post and perform the same command call, the result is the same (i.e. open new tab with Google homepage)

I didn't mean to remove %u from the first screen, but that it doesn't need to be in the system settings -> default applications -> web browser

As for the issue, this could be a dead-end. You could try to make a shellscript to debug it but it could take a lot of work...

thanks for the support so far anyway. just now i was trying to video capture the screen to proof the point but unfortunately the screen video capture could not show the 2nd instance launching in the taskbar for some unknown reason.