Using Mailto: on FireFox 3
 

Anyone there figure out how to set Fastmail as the Mailto: default on Firefox3?

Ah neat, looking up a bit, here's what to do. A little annoying that it's multi-step, but anyway...

1. Type "about:config" in the address bar
2. Search for allowRegisterFromDifferentHost, and it should find an entry called gecko.handlerService.allowRegisterFromDifferentHost
3. Right-click the entry and select Toggle to make it true (this opens a temporary security hole we close in step 7 below)
4. Ctrl-T to open a new tab
5. In the addressbar, enter:

6. It should popup something about "Add this handler?" Click the button to accept it. Close the tab.
7. Go back to the about:config tab, and toggle the setting again to false (this closes the temporary security hole)

That's it, mailto: links in Firefox should now go to FastMail.

To completely remove the handler if you ever want to, go to Tools -> Options -> Applications tab. Enter "mailto" in the search field. You'll see an entry that as "mailto" on the left, and a popup menu on the right. Select "Application details..." from the popup menu. You can Remove the FastMail handler there.

Rob

Rob, Thank you so much. Can't tell you how much I appreciate that help. This little bit of advice will allow me to seamlessly change from the dial-up I've been using these past years to a wireless modem w/o too much trouble.

EB

I think this post should be made sticky or at least go into Fastmail's help.

Thank you very much for posting this.

Can someone add it to the wiki for the moment (wiki.fastmail.fm). I'll add it to the new help when I have a moment...

Rob

nice trick--thanks
 

Any way not to have to log in every time?

I clicked the "long term (auto login)" checkbox when I logged in and then could use it without logging in every time. You can change "http" to "https" in the line rob gave to use https

Rob: Is there any way to get my username into that javascript string? I'm willing to (prefer to) login by hand typing my password but it would be handy to have the username pre-typed when the login page comes up.

No sorry, not at the moment.

Rob

Ah, well - still, it's very handy with 'Send Link...' for referring someone to a web page. Thanks!

Works fine. Thanks.

I just tried this out and it works. You get the Fastmail login.

I have another PC where I click on a mailto: link and it goes straight to compose, already logged in!

Now I do have Fastcheck on that PC and I vaguely remember this has something to do with it, but it still works even if I quit Fastcheck first.

Anyone know how this works?

I'll answer my own question:

Fastcheck sets itself as the Default mail client which means it sets up this registry key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\mailto\shell\open\command = "C:\Program Files\FastCheck\FastCheck.exe" /C %1

Once you setup Fastcheck with your account information and it runs that command it automatically logs you in and goes to Compose with the to: address filled in (and the subject if there is one).

As I mentioned in the last post this still works even if Fastcheck is NOT running. So you could use Fastcheck for this even if you don't want to use it for it's normal function of notifying you of new email.

I don't know why, but that doesn't work for me - perhaps because I upgraded to FF3 after installing fastcheck? I'll try reinstalling fastcheck

J.

Chances are you'd only need to run Fastcheck and re-specify in the account settings that it (FC) should be the mailto: handler.