# Gavin Andresen
# 2010-09-17 18:16:14
# https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1056.msg13070#msg13070

The @p{(link}bitoin URI thread@p{link)} has died down, but bitcoinmarket and MtGox's spiffy "click to pay" features prompted me to think some more about payment links on web pages. @p{par}

The problem with the MtGox/Bitcoinmarket solutions is that they still require you to copy&paste an address if you want to pay directly from the bitcoin client running on your machine.  My computer-phobic relatives just won't be able to do that (I can hear them saying "...BUT I DON'T HAVE A COPY BUTTON..."). @p{par}

But a bitcoin: URI has problems, too: @p{brk}
 1. It is hard to implement@p{--} every browser has a different way of registering protocol handlers. @p{brk}
 2. If you don't have the protocol handler installed, clicking on the link doesn't give you any help on what to do to make it work.  (try it @p{(link}here@p{link)}) @p{brk}
 3. Looks like some software (like this forum) don't like bitcoin URIs: @p{(link}Donate to the Faucet@p{link)} (that URI is @p{(link}bitcoin:15VjRaDX9zpbA8LVnbrCAFzrVzN7ixHNsC,@p{link)} the forum software is truncating it and adding @s{(link)}). @p{par}

Maybe a bitcoin payment request MIME type would work better; you click on a link and the web server returns a little file of type "application/bitcoin-payment-request".  @p{(link}Like this.@p{link)} Or @p{(link}the links on this page@p{link)}. @p{par}

If you're running Firefox, you get this dialog box if it doesn't know about application/bitcoin-payment-requests: @p{brk}
@s{image} @p{par}

On PCs, an app can add stuff to the registry to associate itself with a mime type (anybody know if browsers other than IE pay attention to those registry settings?). @p{par}

Macs are similar (although I don't know the details; gotta set the mime type in the App's Info.plist, I believe...).  Anybody know about Linux? @p{par}

Teaching the Bitcoin application to read the bitcoin-payment-request file would be easy, and it shouldn't be terribly hard to get it to ask an already-running Bitcoin to popup a "Send Payment To..." dialog box with fields filled in (OR get it to start itself running and then popup the dialog box). @p{par}

So: whaddya think? @p{brk}