Hi All: I asked this in an Alpine-info list. Maybe more folks read over here? I
figured Alpine would be a simplest mail client for my Wife, who's also totally
blind. An issue we cannot seem to solve is setting up a windows11 browser for
her to click links contained in messages. Obviously, since I am in Linux, this
works well, but going to outlook, with a path such as
/mnt/c/Program\ Files\ \(x86\)/Microsoft/Edge/Application/msedge.exe
We tried quoting, escaping, changing backslashes to slashes, so-far it won't
work. I am even wondering if linking to an actual Linux browser such as Chrome
would be a better option? Thanks so much in advance for any guidance
Chime

On Fri, 1 Mar 2024, Chime Hart wrote:

> Hi All: I asked this in an Alpine-info list. Maybe more folks read over here?
> I figured Alpine would be a simplest mail client for my Wife, who's also
> totally blind. An issue we cannot seem to solve is setting up a windows11
> browser for her to click links contained in messages. Obviously, since I am
> in Linux, this works well, but going to outlook, with a path such as
> /mnt/c/Program\ Files\ \(x86\)/Microsoft/Edge/Application/msedge.exe
> We tried quoting, escaping, changing backslashes to slashes, so-far it won't
> work. I am even wondering if linking to an actual Linux browser such as
> Chrome would be a better option? Thanks so much in advance for any guidance
> Chime
>

Hello Chime,

I only use linux so I'm afraid I cannot help with windows things.
However... in terms of your wife, I assume windows is a must due to some
special software or service.

But what about running alpine in a VM on windows? Alternatively, running
linux natively, and running windows (in case of any special software) in a
VM on linux?

I think you can integrate VM windows fairly well on the linux desktop.

Just a suggestion.

Best regards,
Daniel

On 01/03/2024 19.07, Chime Hart wrote:
> Hi All: I asked this in an Alpine-info list. Maybe more folks read over
> here? I figured Alpine would be a simplest mail client for my Wife,
> who's also totally blind. An issue we cannot seem to solve is setting up
> a windows11 browser for her to click links contained in messages.
> Obviously, since I am in Linux, this works well, but going to outlook,
> with a path such as
> /mnt/c/Program\ Files\ \(x86\)/Microsoft/Edge/Application/msedge.exe
> We tried quoting, escaping, changing backslashes to slashes, so-far it
> won't work. I am even wondering if linking to an actual Linux browser
> such as Chrome would be a better option? Thanks so much in advance for
> any guidance
> Chime

Nowadays WSL do support GUI application out of the box, so installing a
Linux native browser would work fine, if using the same as the one your
wife uses for windows and then sync them against same cloud account,
then all the bookmarks and passwords would be accessible no matter if
it's WSL or ms-windows.
I do recommend to use a PPA to install the browser as it seems to be a
script that don't work that well under WSL that Canonica uses in Ubutu
to install browsers.

Alternatively modify your PATH to include /mnt/c/Program Files
(x86)/Microsoft/Edge/Application/ (no escaping) and then try to tell to
just execute msedge.exe, not sure how well this will work in alpine, but
could be worth a test.

--
//Aho

On Fri, 1 Mar 2024, Chime Hart wrote:

> Hi All: I asked this in an Alpine-info list. Maybe more folks read over
> here? I figured Alpine would be a simplest mail client for my Wife,
> who's also totally blind. An issue we cannot seem to solve is setting up
> a windows11 browser for her to click links contained in messages.
> Obviously, since I am in Linux, this works well, but going to outlook,
> with a path such as /mnt/c/Program\ Files\
> \(x86\)/Microsoft/Edge/Application/msedge.exe We tried quoting,
> escaping, changing backslashes to slashes, so-far it won't work. I am
> even wondering if linking to an actual Linux browser such as Chrome
> would be a better option?

Chime,

Try the following. Create a script, say browser.sh, in the home directory
whose content is

#!/bin/sh
/mnt/c/Program\ Files\ \(x86\)/Microsoft/Edge/Application/msedge.exe "$1"

make sure it is executable (chmod 700 browser.sh) and set up in the
..pinerc

url-viewers="/full/path/to/browser.sh _URL_"

I hope this helps.

--
Eduardo
https://alpineapp.email (web)
http://repo.or.cz/alpine.git (Git)

Am 01.03.2024 um 19:07 schrieb Chime Hart:
> Hi All: I asked this in an Alpine-info list. Maybe more folks read over
> here? I figured Alpine would be a simplest mail client for my Wife,
> who's also totally blind. An issue we cannot seem to solve is setting up
> a windows11 browser for her to click links contained in messages.
> Obviously, since I am in Linux, this works well, but going to outlook,
> with a path such as
> /mnt/c/Program\ Files\ \(x86\)/Microsoft/Edge/Application/msedge.exe
> We tried quoting, escaping, changing backslashes to slashes, so-far it
> won't work. I am even wondering if linking to an actual Linux browser
> such as Chrome would be a better option? Thanks so much in advance for
> any guidance
> Chime

I understand that currently your system is Windows 11 and you use Alpine
in WSL. So instead of using the Linux version of Alpine you could
install PC-Alpine. I use it for years and am totally happy with it.
Clicking on a link opens the windows default browser.

Holger