View source for Firefox3/ContentManagement:Handlers

__NOTOC__
One of the new features of Firefox 3 is the ability to map a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Url URL protocol segment] to either a website or local application.

This document attempts to document some of the commonly seen protocols on the net and offer some of the handlers that we may want to include as default options.

Feature Functional description appears at http://wiki.mozilla.org/User:Dmose:Fx-Docs:ContentTypeProcessing.

= Protocols =
* [http://www.iana.org/assignments/uri-schemes.html IANA Official list?]
* [http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#custom-handlers What WG Handlers]
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URI_scheme Wikipedia list of common URI Schemes]

{| class="fullwidth-table"
!Protocol !! Candidate Apps/ Web Services !! Comments
|-
|colspan="3"| <b><i>Common</i></b>
|-
| file || Handled by Firefox ||
|-
| http/https || Handled by Firefox||
|-
| ftp ||Handled by Firefox||
|-
| mailto ||Yahoo Mail, GMail, Hotmail, WinOS MAPI, Mail.app, Thunderbird ||
|-
| webcal ||Google Calendar, Thunderbird, iCal||
|-
| news/snews || Google News, Thunderbird, ||
|-
| irc/ircs || ||
|-
| rtsp || ||
|-
| feed || Handled by Firefox ||
|-
| aim || AOL Instant Messenger ||
|-
| skype || Skype ||
|-
| mms || Windows Media Player ||
|-
| ymsgr || Yahoo Messenger ||
|-
|colspan="3"| <b><i>Rare</i></b>
|-
| gopher || Handled by Firefox ||
|-
| tel || Skype, other VOIP app? ||
|-
| telnet || ? ||
|-
| (See about:config, "protocol-handler" || ? ||
|-|}

= MIME Types & Filename Extensions =

* See https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4498

{| class="fullwidth-table"
!Mime Type !! Extensions !! Candidate Apps/ Web Services !! Comments
|-
|colspan="4"| <b><i>Common</i></b>
|-
| application/pdf || pdf || Adobe Acrobat Reader ||
|-
| video/qt || qt || Apple Quicktime ||
|-
|colspan="4"| <b><i>...</i></b>
|-
|}

= RSS Feeds =

* Is this a separate beast?

{| class="fullwidth-table"
!RSS Type !! Candidate Apps/ Web Services !! Comments
|-
|colspan="3"| <b><i>Common</i></b>
|-
| ATOM, text/img || ? || Are there content indicators?
|-
| RSS 2, text/img || LiveBookmarks, Google, My Yahoo, bloglines, <ClientApp> || ?
|-
| RSS 2, Video? || Miro/Democracy Player, NetnewsWire? || ?
|-
| RSS 1 || ? || ?
|-
|}

= Questions =
* Is there anyway to use the existing list of OS registered MIME types handler to add to the list used in Firefox?
** Yes. Currently the list ONLY consists of OS registered handlers, we are trying to add web based handlers to that list.
* Is there anyway to detect if the local app is already installed before offering it as a choice?
* Should we do/use a canonical lookup service like http://filext.com or http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/mime-types.shtml?