Since none of our standard libs could offer a cross-platform, easily available way to launch an URL in the user's default browser, I looked around and found exactly what we need in Python (which we carry anyway) - the standard "webbrowser" module. So I created some Python extensions to launch various URLs using webbrowser.open calls, and put them into Help menu:
- Inkscape Manual links to http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/index.php, do you think we should host a redirect at inkscape.org instead?
- Command line options: http://inkscape.org/doc/inkscape-man.html
- FAQ on wiki
- Release notes for the current version
- "Report a bug" page
- SVG 1.1 specification at w3.org
I tested this and it seems to work well in Linux and Windows. Let me know if you have any problems. Also feel free to suggest other "launch an URL" commands for Inkscape (openclipart? wiki? inkscape.org? Aaron's extension page?)
The only change I made in the core of Inkscape was to allow an inx file to specify <effects-menu hidden="yes"/> so that these new extensions don't automatically show up in the Effects menu.