Bitcoin Magnet Link?

[tiberiandusk]

Is it possible to add magnet link support similar to those used by bittorrent sites to the Bitcoin program so you could make a magnet link of your Wallet address? That way people with Bitcoin installed could just click a link and have an easy way to donate or pay for stuff.

[1713882162]

1713882162

[1713882162]

1713882162

[1713882162]

1713882162

[error]

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/URI_Scheme

[ryepdx]

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/URI_Scheme

Someone needs to write a Firefox/Chrome/IE extension to support that scheme.

[ThiagoCMC]

Let's do it?!?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnet_URI_scheme
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Resource_Name

[cande]

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BIP_0021

[gweedo]

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/URI_Scheme

Someone needs to write a Firefox/Chrome/IE extension to support that scheme.

what would an extension do? if the client program doesn't register the URI scheme you can't really do anything and most people would do

Code:

<a href="bitcoin:175tWpb8K1S7NmH4Zx6rewF9WQrcZv245W">Donate HERE</a>

anyway

[Dice]

Someone needs to write a Firefox/Chrome/IE extension to support that scheme.

Based on this reply i think it can be done in a hackish nature for Chrome:

http://stackoverflow.com/a/2337525/1219907

[gweedo]

Someone needs to write a Firefox/Chrome/IE extension to support that scheme.

Based on this reply i think it can be done in a hackish nature for Chrome:

http://stackoverflow.com/a/2337525/1219907

if you read the top, it says that it needs to be registered to the OS, bitcoin-qt isn't registered to the OS as a handler for the bitcoin URI.

[etotheipi]

These URIs should all work "out-of-the-box" if your Bitcoin application does its job correctly (and registers itself with your OS).  Unfortunately, Bitcoin-Qt does not do this, for reasons I haven't fully understood yet (perhaps bugginess of implementation).  However, most of the alternative clients do this, and simply installing and/or running those programs once will then make "bitcoin:" links clickable from any browser without the user having to setup anything.

Armory checks for the currently-registered application on load and asks if you want to make Armory default.  Multibit and Electrum, I believe they register themselves as the "bitcoin:" handler when you install them.  I think some pressure should be applied to the core Bitcoin-Qt dev team to do something like this too.  It's a tremendously valuable feature for Bitcoin users, especially new ones, to not have to copy and paste information all over the place to send money.  

[Dice]

Someone needs to write a Firefox/Chrome/IE extension to support that scheme.

Based on this reply i think it can be done in a hackish nature for Chrome:

http://stackoverflow.com/a/2337525/1219907

if you read the top, it says that it needs to be registered to the OS, bitcoin-qt isn't registered to the OS as a handler for the bitcoin URI.

I see, yup just read up on it and it can be achieved i believe from bitcoin-qt by coding up the following:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa767914%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

[gweedo]

Someone needs to write a Firefox/Chrome/IE extension to support that scheme.

Based on this reply i think it can be done in a hackish nature for Chrome:

http://stackoverflow.com/a/2337525/1219907

if you read the top, it says that it needs to be registered to the OS, bitcoin-qt isn't registered to the OS as a handler for the bitcoin URI.

I see, yup just read up on it and it can be achieved i believe from bitcoin-qt by coding up the following:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa767914%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

Read etotheipi what says about bitcoin-qt, it doesn't support the bitcoin URI as of now, and plus if you could send the URI to bitcoin-qt it will not parse it or accept it. So getting bitcoin-qt to work would take you coding it yourself.

[rjk]

I thought the installer for bitcoin-qt took care of the URI registration, but the standalone won't do it. It's an NSIS installer, so it would be easy to extract the code and create a patcher that updates the registry without doing anything else.

[gweedo]

I thought the installer for bitcoin-qt took care of the URI registration, but the standalone won't do it. It's an NSIS installer, so it would be easy to extract the code and create a patcher that updates the registry without doing anything else.

only bad thing that is only for windows not Mac

[rjk]

I thought the installer for bitcoin-qt took care of the URI registration, but the standalone won't do it. It's an NSIS installer, so it would be easy to extract the code and create a patcher that updates the registry without doing anything else.

only bad thing that is only for windows not Mac

I tried it just for fun, but for some reason the string doesn't get passed properly, or else Bitcoin-qt doesn't yet know how to handle URIs. This is the code I used:

Code:

OutFile bitcoin-register-URI.exe
InstallDir $PROGRAMFILES\Bitcoin

Section Main SEC0000
WriteRegStr HKCR "bitcoin" "URL Protocol" ""
WriteRegStr HKCR "bitcoin" "" "URL:Bitcoin"
WriteRegStr HKCR "bitcoin\DefaultIcon" "" $INSTDIR\bitcoin-qt.exe
WriteRegStr HKCR "bitcoin\shell\open\command" "" '"$INSTDIR\bitcoin-qt.exe" "$$1"'
SectionEnd

It works, except that when you click a link bitcoin-qt complains that it is already running and then exits.

[Foxpup]

Read etotheipi what says about bitcoin-qt, it doesn't support the bitcoin URI as of now, and plus if you could send the URI to bitcoin-qt it will not parse it or accept it. So getting bitcoin-qt to work would take you coding it yourself.

Bitcoin-Qt does fully support bitcoin URIs, and has since version 0.6.0, it just doesn't doesn't automatically register itself as a URI handler. You can register it manually if you want, and even if you don't, you can still pass bitcoin URIs to it as a command-line argument or drag-and-drop bitcoin URI links onto the Bitcoin-Qt window.

I tried it just for fun, but for some reason the string doesn't get passed properly, or else Bitcoin-qt doesn't yet know how to handle URIs. This is the code I used:

Code:

Name "Bitcoin Standalone URI Registration"
SetCompressor /SOLID lzma

OutFile bitcoin-register-URI.exe
InstallDir $PROGRAMFILES\Bitcoin
CRCCheck on

Section -Main SEC0000
WriteRegStr HKCR "bitcoin" "URL Protocol" ""
WriteRegStr HKCR "bitcoin" "" "URL:Bitcoin"
WriteRegStr HKCR "bitcoin\DefaultIcon" "" $INSTDIR\bitcoin-qt.exe
WriteRegStr HKCR "bitcoin\shell\open\command" "" '"$INSTDIR\bitcoin-qt.exe" "$$1"'
SectionEnd

It works, except that when you click a link bitcoin-qt complains that it is already running and then exits.

What version of Bitcoin-Qt are you using?

[rjk]

What version of Bitcoin-Qt are you using?

0.6.3

[etotheipi]

Not directed towards any particular person/group, I created a walk-thru based on my experience implementing URI support in Armory.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=79010.0

It shows how to do it in windows with the registry (non-admin, like Firefox/Chrome/IE setting your default browser), and for a couple of Ubuntu/Gnome variants (because it's fairly straightforward in Gnome, but Ubuntu 11.04+ switched to Unity and this kind of registration doesn't work anymore).

[Foxpup]

What version of Bitcoin-Qt are you using?

0.6.3

What happens if you just run "bitcoin-qt bitcoin:somerandomaddress" from the command line (while Bitcoin-Qt is already running)?

[rjk]

What version of Bitcoin-Qt are you using?

0.6.3

What happens if you just run "bitcoin-qt bitcoin:somerandomaddress" from the command line (while Bitcoin-Qt is already running)?

I get the same error:

[Foxpup]

What happens if you just run "bitcoin-qt bitcoin:somerandomaddress" from the command line (while Bitcoin-Qt is already running)?

I get the same error:

Huh. What happens if you drag-and-drop a bitcoin URI link onto the Bitcoin-Qt window?