Problems with Qt5's QDesktopServices::openUrl()

Problems with Qt5's QDesktopServices::openUrl()

[Dr Rainer Woitok]

Cygwinners,

currently I have two applications  which I compiled myself under Cygwin:
GPSBabel and QMapShack.   Both use Qt5, both provide online help via the
browser,  and both fail doing so  in my environment.   The version of my
various Qt5 packages is 5.5.1-1.

Looking at the source code of GPSBabel and QMapShack I can see that both
are using  QDesktopServices::openUrl()  to start the browser and to dis-
play the URL provided.  The message on standard error is in both cases

Launch failed (/C/Program Files/Mozilla Firefox/firefox http://www.gpsbabel.org/htmldoc-1.5.3/index.html)

except that QMapShack, of course, uses a different URL.

I placed a short script named "firefox"  in my personal "~/bin/" direct-
ory (which is the  first in environment variable "PATH")  containing the
three lines

   #! /bin/ksh
   "/C/Program Files/Mozilla Firefox/firefox" "$@"
   echo Firefox via script.

which caused  QDesktopServices::openUrl() to succeed.   I then created a
directory named "~/blank bin/",  prefixed my "PATH" environment variable
with it, moved the "firefox" script from "~/bin/" to "~/blank bin/", and
then QDesktopServices::openUrl()  failed  again,  while a direct call of
"firefox cygwin.com"  from the command line  correctly called  my script
and opened the web page.

So I assume QDesktopServices::openUrl()  at least under Cygwin is having
a problem with  blanks in  path names  and maybe  also with  the missing
".exe" extension (see the "Launch failed" error message).

Does anybody have an idea what to do next or whom to contact?

Sincerely,
  Rainer

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Re: Problems with Qt5's QDesktopServices::openUrl()

[Yaakov Selkowitz]

On 2016-03-05 09:02, Dr Rainer Woitok wrote:
> currently I have two applications  which I compiled myself under Cygwin:
> GPSBabel and QMapShack.   Both use Qt5, both provide online help via the
> browser,  and both fail doing so  in my environment.   The version of my
> various Qt5 packages is 5.5.1-1.
[snip]
> So I assume QDesktopServices::openUrl()  at least under Cygwin is having
> a problem with  blanks in  path names  and maybe  also with  the missing
> ".exe" extension (see the "Launch failed" error message).

Searching for "QDesktopServices::openUrl spaces in PATH" (without the 
quotes) turned up a lot of hits.

-- 
Yaakov

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Re: Problems with Qt5's QDesktopServices::openUrl()

[Dr Rainer Woitok]

Yaakov,

On Wednesday, 2016-03-09 23:54:04 -0600, you wrote:

> On 2016-03-05 09:02, Dr Rainer Woitok wrote:
> > currently I have two applications  which I compiled myself under Cygwin:
> > GPSBabel and QMapShack.   Both use Qt5, both provide online help via the
> > browser,  and both fail doing so  in my environment.   The version of my
> > various Qt5 packages is 5.5.1-1.
> [snip]
> > So I assume QDesktopServices::openUrl()  at least under Cygwin is having
> > a problem with  blanks in  path names  and maybe  also with  the missing
> > ".exe" extension (see the "Launch failed" error message).
> 
> Searching for "QDesktopServices::openUrl spaces in PATH" (without the 
> quotes) turned up a lot of hits.

You are right,  but the ones I found  refer to blanks in the path of the
file TO BE OPENED.  My problem is blanks in the path of the program that
is used to open the file.   This program is picked  internally by QDesk-
topServices::openUrl() and is called internally,  and currently it seems
the path to it must not contain blanks.

Sincerely,
  Rainer

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Re: Problems with Qt5's QDesktopServices::openUrl()

[Yaakov Selkowitz]

On 2016-03-10 09:29, Dr Rainer Woitok wrote:
> On Wednesday, 2016-03-09 23:54:04 -0600, you wrote:
>> On 2016-03-05 09:02, Dr Rainer Woitok wrote:
>>> currently I have two applications  which I compiled myself under Cygwin:
>>> GPSBabel and QMapShack.   Both use Qt5, both provide online help via the
>>> browser,  and both fail doing so  in my environment.   The version of my
>>> various Qt5 packages is 5.5.1-1.
>> [snip]
>>> So I assume QDesktopServices::openUrl()  at least under Cygwin is having
>>> a problem with  blanks in  path names  and maybe  also with  the missing
>>> ".exe" extension (see the "Launch failed" error message).
>>
>> Searching for "QDesktopServices::openUrl spaces in PATH" (without the
>> quotes) turned up a lot of hits.
>
> You are right,  but the ones I found  refer to blanks in the path of the
> file TO BE OPENED.  My problem is blanks in the path of the program that
> is used to open the file.   This program is picked  internally by QDesk-
> topServices::openUrl() and is called internally,  and currently it seems
> the path to it must not contain blanks.

Have you tried the same on Linux?

-- 
Yaakov

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Re: Problems with Qt5's QDesktopServices::openUrl()

[Dr Rainer Woitok]

Yaakov,

On Thursday, 2016-03-10 16:30:40 -0600, you wrote:

> ...
> Have you tried the same on Linux?

No.  Simply because I do not have any access to a Linux box.

Sincerely,
  Rainer

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