Firefox3/ContentManagement:Handlers

One of the new features of Firefox 3 is the ability to map a 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

• IANA Official list?
• What WG Handlers
• Wikipedia list of common URI Schemes

MIME Types & Filename Extensions

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

Protocol	Candidate Apps/ Web Services	Comments
Common
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
Rare
gopher	Handled by Firefox
tel	Skype, other VOIP app?
telnet	?
(See about:config, "protocol-handler"	?

Mime Type	Extensions	Candidate Apps/ Web Services	Comments
Common
application/pdf	pdf	Adobe Acrobat Reader
video/qt	qt	Apple Quicktime
...

RSS Feeds

• Is this a separate beast?

RSS Type	Candidate Apps/ Web Services	Comments
Common
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?
• 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?