Firefox 3 has brought about a whole slew of new features and abilities, one of them is being able to register webapps as link handlers. What is a link handler? In this example, when a web user clicks an email address a properly configured computer will open the default email program with the clicked email address already in an edit window, ready for composing. New to Firefox 3 is allowed this mailto: link to open webmail rather the typical email desktop program. By default, and strangely enough given Mozilla and Google’s ties, Firefox only supports mailto: links for Yahoo mail. Here’s what you can do about that in order to support Gmail.
- In a new Firefox window/tab, type about:config in the address bar.
- From the Filter box, type gecko.handlerService.allowRegisterFromDifferentHost
- Double click on the result and change the value from false to true.
- Copy and paste this snippet of javascript into your address bar:
- javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler(“mailto”,”https://mail.google.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s”,”Gmail”)
- if you are a Google Apps user use this snippet instead, replacing howinthetech.com with your domain:
javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler(“mailto”,”https://mail.google.com/a/howinthetech.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s”,”Gmail”)
- Firefox will request permission to register Gmail as the mailto handler. Click Add Application
- Lastly, for security purposes, go back to step 3 above and revert gecko.handlerService.allowRegisterFromDifferentHost back to false.
Now the next time you happen across a mailto: link Firefox will ask you which application you want to use. Choose Gmail and check Remember my choice for mailto links to make the change permanent.
