Re: no org-export-to-html-and-open since distribution switch

[Nick Dokos <ndokos@gmail.com>]

Sven Ehret <sven@ehlu.name> writes:

> Hi List,
>
> since I have switched distributions from Mint to Arch, I have lost one
> of my most-loved Org features: Export to HTML and open.
>
> ...
>
> When I command M-x org-export-to-html-and-open, it says [No match].
>

That function might have existed in org 7.9.x and earlier, but the exporter
underwent major restructuring in the org 8.0 release and a lot of things
were changed/renamed. The current version does this for C-c C-e h o:

(org-open-file (org-html-export-to-html <args>))

org-html-export-to-html writes an HTML file and org-open-file opens it.
See the doc string for the latter: C-h f org-open-file RET

You might have to customize org-file-apps to override the default for
the HTML file type (although see below first). For me, the default is
"mailcap" (determined through the system specific variable
org-file-apps-defaults-gnu - the default is the "t" entry), so it uses
the entry in ~/.mailcap or /etc/mailcap (if it exists). Mine says:

text/html; /usr/bin/google-chrome %s

so it opens it in chrome.

The problem here is that there are too many cooks in the kitchen. I
prefer to leave things at default as far as org is concerned and use
mailcap (which is used by other applications as well). Other people
prefer to hardwire things into org-file-apps which is fine for org but
of course it is not used by any other applications. Other people prefer
to route everything through their desktop environment's Open function
(e.g xdg-open for Gnome) which uses its own routing mechanism (generally
different from mailcap).

I suggest you pick *one* method and stick with it through thick and
thin: ignore everything else. Using more than one leads to madness.
The path of least resistance is probably customizing org-file-apps.

> The symptoms are very much like described in
> http://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/2387/browser-not-opening-when-exporting-html-from-org-mode
> , but unfortunately there is no documented solution.
>
> My org version reports as „Org-mode version 8.2.10
> (8.2.10-41-g42228a-elpaplus @
> /home/ehret/.emacs.d/elpa/org-plus-contrib-20150615/)“.
>
> I tried moving the elpa installation out of the way and installing a
> distribution package, aur/emacs-org-mode, but the result is the same.
>
> Emacs will likely always feel alien to me, but my love to org mode is
> bitter sweeeet.
>
> Any help or hints are greatly appreciated!
>
> Best, Sven.

HTH,
Nick