[racket] help browser other than "open" in OS X

On Thu, Jun 02 2011, Eli Barzilay wrote:

[...]

> In any case, if the winds blow towards implementing it, then the main
> issue with the unix setup is that it's a bunch of half-baked hacks
> that know how to invoke a set of browsers, catering to each browser's
> quirks -- and I would love to see all of that go away when `xdg-open'
> or whatever becomes popular enough to rely on.  So if this is added,
> I'd like to see it done via
>
> * a new configuration option that has just the path to a binary to be
>   executed with the URL as a single command-line argument
>
> * the option can then be ignored by drracket so it becomes a
>   power-user thing
>
> * and for the same reason the simple single argument thing works: if
>   it's intended to be used by power users, they can just as well write
>   a script that will do whatever's needed.
>
> (As you can see, I don't like the UI for setting the unix option
> manually -- it has been the source of *many* confusions.)

All of those seem reasonable requirements to me.

>> And, IMO, it's not only for Emacs-heads that the option is useful:
>> one might want to have a dedicated browser for Racket help because,
>> say, Firefox displays Rackets manuals nicer than Safari, or quicker,
>> or whatever.
>
> But that applies for all applications, and AFAICT, the ability to set
> which browser an application uses is something that I didn't see in a
> really long time.  (Except for an occasional application on unix, like
> drr.)

Agreed: i guess i'm spoiled by DrRacket and Emacs, where, as you know,
browse-url-function can be made very fine grained.

Anyway, what i would *really* like to have is a racket help function
that, instead of calling a preconfigured browser, returned the URL to be
browsed (much as 'help' now actually prints it).  With that, i'd hack
what i need in Elisp/Geiser, and wouldn't mess with DrRacket's
preferences (i just thought that it'd be easier to change the later
since the functionality is already available for linux).

Cheers,
jao