Steps to reproduce: 1. Verify in systemsettings that dolphin is the prefered file manager 2. from konsole: kfmclient openURL ~ Expected result: Run dolphin Actual result: konqueror is started xdg-open behaves correctly, as does kde-open. This is different from #155713, as dolphin is in the inode list (at top position for inode/directory) in MIME type handling in systemsettings.
From what I see, this is intended. Konqueror has a special mode, where it can stay in memory, even if all windows are closed. Using this tool, you can start such a dormant Konqueror. Not closing, because maintainer decides.
This is inconsistent with handling of other protocols: kfmclient openURL http://www.duckduckgo.com/ opens firefox (default browser). The reason I noticed this is firefox's function "open containing folder" with downloads. There are possible workarounds, but these are more or less "dirty". Firefox seems to use kfmclient or trigger something which does.
"kfm" is the old name for konqueror, so "kfmclient" aims at controlling konqueror. But indeed it obeys the BrowserApplication setting, when set (special case, due to code sharing). For the general case of "open the preferred app for this file", kde-open is the answer.