can no longer be selected as default mail application

Is there anyone looking after this? Now that Natty is out this is really annoying.

as i said in the initial message, they changed the meaning of a "default mail client" to suit the contact/presence menu, if desktop-webmail is going to return it probably needs to be able to compose directly and start a client with a message, as that's all the other mailers require to show up on that menu, as of the last time i used it it just handled mailto: which was an implicit compose

i looked into this a bit again, i'm gonna prepare a patch to support the messaging menu, it's just a matter of changing the .desktop to include X-Ayatana-Desktop-Shortcuts=, and the subsections for each shortcut it supports

you can look at /usr/share/applications/evolution.desktop for how to do it
the files that reference the entries are here: /usr/share/indicators/messages/applications

hopefully that will be enough until i have time to put the patch together, thanks!

Yep this broke on Natty for me.

Don't forget to add the MimeType.

Example file, opens GMail but ignores the mailto: content :-/

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Desktop Webmail
GenericName=Email
Comment=Compose email in browser
Comment[de]=EMail in Browser schreiben
Exec=desktop-webmail %s
Icon=desktop-webmail
Terminal=false
Type=Application
StartupNotify=true
Categories=Application;Network;Email
MimeType=x-scheme-handler/mailto
X-Ayatana-Desktop-Shortcuts=Compose

[Compose Shortcut Group]
Name=Compose New Message
Exec=desktop-webmail mailto:
TargetEnvironment=Messaging Menu;Unity

Fixed after reading http://askubuntu.com/questions/35488/list-of-custom-launchers-quicklists-for-unity

%s replaced with %U

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Desktop Webmail
GenericName=Email
Comment=Compose email in browser
Comment[de]=EMail in Browser schreiben
Exec=desktop-webmail %U
Icon=desktop-webmail
Terminal=false
Type=Application
StartupNotify=true
Categories=Application;Network;Email
MimeType=x-scheme-handler/mailto
X-Ayatana-Desktop-Shortcuts=Compose

[Compose Shortcut Group]
Name=Compose New Message
Exec=desktop-webmail mailto:
TargetEnvironment=Messaging Menu;Unity

Drop-in replacement to
/usr/share/applications/desktop-webmail.desktop
which work after issuing
sudo update-desktop-database

The fix worked for me (at least I got Desktop Webmail as an option in the dropdown menu).
Thank you, guys.

This problem is still occurring in Oneiric Ocelot Beta 2.

The fix doesn't quite get there: when I try to send a file from Nautilus, it opens me the gmail compose window with correct receiver but the file is not attached.

Hmm, maybe it's another bug, actually?

Yes, please file that as a different bug!

------------------------------------------------------------
revno: 32
committer: Alexander Sack <email address hidden>
branch nick: desktop-webmail
timestamp: Sat 2011-12-03 11:35:15 +0100
message:
  make update-po and add missing de and nl translation for 'Compose New Message' msgid
------------------------------------------------------------
revno: 31
committer: Alexander Sack <email address hidden>
branch nick: desktop-webmail
timestamp: Sat 2011-12-03 11:34:52 +0100
message:
  add nl to ALL_LINGUAS
------------------------------------------------------------
revno: 30
committer: Alexander Sack <email address hidden>
branch nick: desktop-webmail
timestamp: Sat 2011-12-03 11:24:51 +0100
message:
  improve .desktop file to include mime-type and support unity lp:754321
   - fixes desktop-webmail can no longer be selected as default mail application
   - thx to TiCPU (jeromepoulin) for the basics
------------------------------------------------------------

https://launchpad.net/desktop-webmail/+milestone/003 released.

for oneiric and precise please try 003 packages from this ppa: https://launchpad.net/~asac/+archive/sandbox/+packages

if you dont know how, use this:

 sudo add-apt-repository ppa:asac/sandbox
 sudo apt-get update
 sudo apt-get install desktop-webmail

verify that you use a 003 based version using:
 dpkg -l desktop-webmail

please confirm that this makes this issue go away for you.

I'm not sure how to test this. I don't know where I have a link other than in Firefox in the system like in a GTK app or Qt app.

Thank you Alexander #16. Problem fixed.

This bug was fixed in the package desktop-webmail - 003-0ubuntu1

---------------
desktop-webmail (003-0ubuntu1) precise; urgency=low

  * New upstream release 003
    - fixes LP: #769235 - Icons & app names identical for desktop-email & desktop-email-config
    - fixes LP: #651183 - FTBFS: cairo.h:1976: error: comma at end of enumerator list
    - fixes LP: #754321 - can no longer be selected as default mail application
  * drop debian/patches/ftbfs-no-pedantic.patch now addressed upstream
  * bump debian/control Standards-Version => 3.9.2
 -- Alexander Sack <email address hidden> Sat, 03 Dec 2011 12:38:24 +0100