102907 - Link toolbar doesn't support HTTP links headers

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(SeaMonkey :: UI Design, enhancement)

Description

[Hixie (not reading bugmail)]

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
   Go to a web page with links in HTTP headers, e.g.:
      http://www.bath.ac.uk/~py8ieh/internet/eviltests/link6.html

ACTUAL RESULTS
   The link toolbar has no links.

EXPECTED RESULTS
   Identical to http://www.bath.ac.uk/~py8ieh/internet/eviltests/link2.html

cc'ing usual suspects as per bug 102832.

Comment 1

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Could you confirm Link is in HTTP 1.1 (RFC 2616)? As far as I can see, it
appears to be deprecated.

Gerv

Comment 2

[Jeffrey Baker]

Link was dropped from the final version of RFC 2616:

   The Alternates, Content-Version, Derived-From, Link, URI, Public and
   Content-Base header fields were defined in previous versions of this
   specification, but not commonly implemented. See RFC 2068 [33].

This bug should be WONTFIX until someone demonstrates why it should be implemented.

Comment 3

[Hixie (not reading bugmail)]

It was taken out of the final spec because there were no implementations. If
people implement it, it will be put back in.

HTTP Link headers are an amazingly powerful feature. We support them for
stylesheets, making it possible to style an entire website without touching a
single file outside the server configuration. Similarly, supporting Link for the
link toolbar would give the same power for linking.

Having half-hearted Link header support (e.g. for stylesheets but not links) is
almost worse than having no support, as it is inconsistent and confusing. Link
headers are good. Why would we _not_ want to support them?

Comment 4

[David Hallowell]

Adding 'headers' to the description - the previous description sounded like the
link toolbar didn't support http links as in URL's that beging with http://.

Comment 5

[Brian Smith (:briansmith, :bsmith, use NEEDINFO?)]

This is also the only way to support LINK-type structures in non-(X)HTML 
documents.

Comment 6

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

Filter "spam" on "guifeatures-nobody-20080610".

Comment 7

[Philip Chee]

The SeaMonkey team won't devote any resources on this. Closing as WONTFIX