mailto - Dave's Blog

location.hash and location.search are bad and they should feel bad

2014 May 22, 9:25

The DOM location interface exposes the HTML document's URI parsed into its properties. However, it is ancient and has problems that bug me but otherwise rarely show up in the real world. Complaining about mostly theoretical issues is why blogging exists, so here goes:

The location object's search, hash, and protocol properties are all misnomers that lead to confusion about the correct terms:
- The 'search' property returns the URI's query property. The query property isn't limited to containing search terms.
- The 'hash' property returns the URI's fragment property. This one is just named after its delimiter. It should be called the fragment.
- The 'protocol' property returns the URI's scheme property. A URI's scheme isn't necessarily a protocol. The http URI scheme of course uses the HTTP protocol, but the https URI scheme is the HTTP protocol over SSL/TLS - there is no HTTPS protocol. Similarly for something like mailto - there is no mailto wire protocol.
The 'hash' and 'search' location properties both return null in the case that their corresponding URI property doesn't exist or if its the empty string. A URI with no query property and a URI with an empty string query property that are otherwise the same, are not equal URIs and are allowed by HTTP to return different content. Similarly for the fragment. Unless the specific URI scheme defines otherwise, an empty query or hash isn't the same as no query or hash.

But like complaining about the number of minutes in an hour none of this can ever change without huge compat issues on the web. Accordingly I can only give my thanks to Anne van Kesteren and the awesome work on the URL standard moving towards a more sane (but still working practically within the constraints of compat) location object and URI parsing in the browser.

RFC 6068 - The 'mailto' URI Scheme

2010 Oct 5, 2:54The mailto URI scheme finally gets its own RFC.

Mark Finkle's Weblog - Firefox 3 - Web Protocol Handlers

2009 Apr 7, 12:12HTML5's registerProtocolHandler seems to come from a cool FireFox 3 feature: "With web protocol handlers, the web application can register the specific protocol it wants to handle. Firefox will then prompt the user to choose which of the registered applications (web or desktop) it should use to handle the action. Any protocol, real or imaginary, can be used - mailto: is only one example, webcal:, tel: and fax: are others."

firefox uri scheme protocol mozilla html5 registerProtocolHandler

Thoughts on registerProtocolHandler in HTML 5

2009 Apr 7, 9:02

I'm a big fan of the concept of registerProtocolHandler in HTML 5 and in FireFox 3, but not quite the implementation. From a high level, it allows web apps to register themselves as handlers of an URL scheme so for (the canonical) example, GMail can register for the mailto URL scheme. I like the concept:

Better integration of web apps with your system.
Its easy for web apps to do.
Links to URNs can now take the user to the sites the user prefers for the sort of thing identified by the URN. For example, if I have a physical address in HTML, instead of making that an http link to Yahoo Maps, I can make the link a geo scheme URI and those who follow the link will get their preferred mapping site that has registered for that scheme. Actually, looking at the geo scheme's RFC, maybe I'd rather use some other URN scheme to represent the physical location, but you get the point.

However, the way its currently spec'ed out I don't like the following:

There's no way to know if you are the handler for a particular URL scheme which is an important question for web app URL protocol handler authors.
There's no way to fallback to an http URL in the case that a particular URL scheme isn't registered. A suggested solution to testing the registration of a scheme is for browsers to provide an additional script method to check if a scheme is registered. I don't like the idea of writing script that walks over all my page's links and rewrites them based on that method. I'd much rather see a declarative and backwards compatible fallback mechanism, although I don't know what that would look like.
There's no way to register for a namespace within the urn scheme URI, the info scheme URI, or the tag scheme URI. I want to register info:lccn/... (Library of Congress Card Number identifiers) to LibraryThing or Amazon and I want to register urn:duri:... (dated URIs) to the Web Archive, among other things.

Will this result in a proliferation of unregistered URL schemes with clashing namespaces? The ESW Wiki notes why this would be bad.
And last, although this is nitpickier than the rest, I don't like the '%s' syntax used in the registration method. I'd much rather pass in an URL template, like the URL template used in OpenSearch. If an URL template is used for matching rather than registering against a particular URL scheme, this could also allow for registering a namespace within a URN. For example something along the lines of: registerProtocolHandler("info:lccn/{lccnID}", "htttp://www.librarything.com/search_works.php?q={lccnID}", "LibraryThing LCCN")

url template registerprotocolhandler firefox technical url scheme protocol boring html5 uri urn

Internet Explorer 8 Released

2009 Mar 20, 6:18

IE8, the software I've been working on for some time now, has finally been released at MIX09.

Download IE8.
Dean's MIX09 Keynote releasing IE8 is viewable here.
Louis pointed me to this humorous IE8 advertising that doesn't make me cringe. On the contrary it has Ask a Ninja, Janeane Garofalo, and several comedians I recall collectively from either 'I Love the [decade]' or 'Best Week Ever'.
It seems like only a year ago that IE8 Beta was released.
IE Blog: IE8 Released.

As I mentioned previously, I worked on accelerators (previously named Activities) in IE8. Looking at the kinds of things I blog about on the IE Blog, you might also correctly guess that I work on the networking stack. Ask me about what else I worked on during IE8 development. The past few months were very busy for me and I'm happy this is finally out.

technical internet explorer ie8

Investigation of a Few Application Protocols (Updated)

2008 Oct 25, 6:51

Windows allows for application protocols in which, through the registry, you specify a URL scheme and a command line to have that URL passed to your application. Its an easy way to hook a webbrowser up to your application. Anyone can read the doc above and then walk through the registry and pick out the application protocols but just from that info you can't tell what the application expects these URLs to look like. I did a bit of research on some of the application protocols I've seen which is listed below. Good places to look for information on URI schemes: Wikipedia URI scheme, and ESW Wiki UriSchemes.

Some Application Protocols and associated documentation.
Scheme	Name	Notes
search-ms	Windows Search Protocol	The search-ms application protocol is a convention for querying the Windows Search index. The protocol enables applications, like Microsoft Windows Explorer, to query the index with parameter-value arguments, including property arguments, previously saved searches, Advanced Query Syntax, Natural Query Syntax, and language code identifiers (LCIDs) for both the Indexer and the query itself. See the MSDN docs for search-ms for more info. Example: search-ms:query=food
Explorer.AssocProtocol.search-ms	Windows Search Protocol
OneNote	OneNote Protocol	From the OneNote help: `/hyperlink "pagetarget"` - Starts OneNote and opens the page specified by the pagetarget parameter. To obtain the hyperlink for any page in a OneNote notebook, right-click its page tab and then click Copy Hyperlink to this Page. Example: onenote:///\\GUMMO\Users\davris\Documents\OneNote%20Notebooks\OneNote%202007%20Guide\Getting%20Started%20with%20OneNote.one#section-id={692F45F5-A42A-415B-8C0D-39A10E88A30F}&end
callto	Callto Protocol	ESW Wiki Info on callto Skype callto info NetMeeting callto info Example: callto://+12125551234
itpc	iTunes Podcast	Tells iTunes to subscribe to an indicated podcast. iTunes documentation. C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.exe /url "%1" Example: itpc:http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=35
iTunes.AssocProtocol.itpc
pcast
iTunes.AssocProtocol.pcast
Magnet	Magnet URI	Magnet URL scheme described by Wikipedia. Magnet URLs identify a resource by a hash of that resource so that when used in P2P scenarios no central authority is necessary to create URIs for a resource.
mailto	Mail Protocol	RFC 2368 - Mailto URL Scheme. Mailto Syntax Opens mail programs with new message with some parameters filled in, such as the to, from, subject, and body. Example: mailto:?to=david.risney@gmail.com&subject=test&body=Test of mailto syntax
WindowsMail.Url.Mailto	Mail Protocol
MMS	mms Protocol	MSDN describes associated protocols. Wikipedia describes MMS. "C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe" "%L" Also appears to be related to MMS cellphone messages: MMS IETF Draft.
WMP11.AssocProtocol.MMS	mms Protocol
secondlife	[SecondLife]	Opens SecondLife to the specified location, user, etc. SecondLife Wiki description of the URL scheme. "C:\Program Files\SecondLife\SecondLife.exe" -set SystemLanguage en-us -url "%1" Example: secondlife://ahern/128/128/128
skype	Skype Protocol	Open Skype to call a user or phone number. Skype's documentation Wikipedia summary of skype URL scheme "C:\Program Files\Skype\Phone\Skype.exe" "/uri:%l" Example: skype:+14035551111?call
skype-plugin	Skype Plugin Protocol Handler	Something to do with adding plugins to skype? Maybe. "C:\Program Files\Skype\Plugin Manager\skypePM.exe" "/uri:%1"
svn	SVN Protocol	Opens TortoiseSVN to browse the repository URL specified in the URL. C:\Program Files\TortoiseSVN\bin\TortoiseProc.exe /command:repobrowser /path:"%1"
svn+ssh
tsvn
webcal	Webcal Protocol	Wikipedia describes webcal URL scheme. Webcal URL scheme description. A URL that starts with webcal:// points to an Internet location that contains a calendar in iCalendar format. "C:\Program Files\Windows Calendar\wincal.exe" /webcal "%1" Example: webcal://www.lightstalkers.org/LS.ics
WindowsCalendar.UrlWebcal.1	Webcal Protocol
zune	Zune Protocol	Provides access to some Zune operations such as podcast subscription (via Zune Insider). "c:\Program Files\Zune\Zune.exe" -link:"%1" Example: zune://subscribe/?name=http://feeds.feedburner.com/wallstrip.
feed	Outlook Add RSS Feed	Identify a resource that is a feed such as Atom or RSS. Implemented by Outlook to add the indicated feed to Outlook. Feed URI scheme pre-draft document "C:\PROGRA~2\MICROS~1\Office12\OUTLOOK.EXE" /share "%1"
im	IM Protocol	RFC 3860 IM URI scheme description Like mailto but for instant messaging clients. Registered by Office Communicator but I was unable to get it to work as described in RFC 3860. "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office Communicator\Communicator.exe" "%1"
tel	Tel Protocol	RFC 5341 - tel URI scheme IANA assignment RFC 3966 - tel URI scheme description Call phone numbers via the tel URI scheme. Implemented by Office Communicator. "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office Communicator\Communicator.exe" "%1"

(Updated 2008-10-27: Added feed, im, and tel from Office Communicator)

technical application protocol shell url windows

Set Gmail as Default Mail Client in Ubuntu :: the How-To Geek

2008 Apr 3, 6:48The comments have info on URI template for gmail message composition: "https://mail.google.com/mail?view=cm&tf=0&to=`echo $1 | sed 's/mailto://'`"

gmail mail uri howto reference google

IEBlog: URI Comparison Functions

2007 Oct 24, 6:20I have a new post on the IE Blog on the topic of Win32 URI Comparison Functions.
I've blogged there previously on the topics of IPv6 URIs in IE7, International Mailto URIs in IE7, File URIs in Windows, and CreateURLMoniker Considered Harmful. Hooray for URIs!

microsoft technical blog url win32 ie windows uri

IEBlog : International Mailto URIs in IE7

2007 Feb 12, 9:59My blog post on international mailto URIs in IE7

windows ie microsoft ie7 browser internet uri blog me mailto

My New IE Blog Entry

2006 Dec 6, 6:18I got another blog entry on the IE Blog! I wrote about file URIs in IE. Lots of fun right? Woo for file URIs! I added the post to del.icio.us and saw that it had already been added 6 times previous. This compared to my previous IE Blog post which was added to del.icio.us a total of 1 time(s) by y.t. I guess people are more interested in blog posts that have 'URI' in the title than they are about blog posts whose title references Dijkstra. Coming soon (or later) to the IE Blog: a post on international mailto URIs. Hooray!

blog ie7 file uri delicious