184269 - "Open in Tabs" folder action should skip JS bookmarks

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, enhancement)

Description

[Jeremy M. Dolan]

"Open in Tabs" skips subfolders, but it tries to run JS bookmarks. Is this
intended? I have a "cd .." bookmark in my personal toolbar, and some news sites.
When I try to open them all in tabs, I get a dialog that says "the URL is
invalid and can not be loaded", presumably due to the JS bookmark.

javascript:location.href=location.href.substring(0,location.href.substring(0,location.href.length-1).lastIndexOf('/')+1)

Comment 1

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

Why should it skip js bookmarks? If you don't want a js bookmark to open with
the other bookmarks in that folder then move it to a differnt folder. I also
have js bookmarks scattered around in my various bookmark folders. When I launch
a folder into tabs I get a blank tab for any of my js bookmarks so it's easy
enough to deal with. But suppose that you had a folder of js bookmarks that
served some purpose when loaded into tabs. 

Comment 2

[Jeremy M. Dolan]

I suppose it is possible that a JS bookmark could be useful to load directly.

I a 'js' folder on my PT with scriptlets in it... twice I've hit 'open in new
tabs' instead of the bottom link, which a) deletes all my current tabs  b) locks
mozilla with 100% CPU for a good 3-4 minutes.

Similarly, keyword bookmarks probably don't have a reason to ever load directly.

Maybe something could be added to bookmark manager, to add properties to
bookmark folders? NO-GROUP-OPEN and NO-SHOW would be useful to apply to
scriptlet and keyword folders, respectively. Adding these to the file format
would be backwards compatible, and the UI could be out of the way enough that
it's not an issue.

Either way, not a high priority.

Comment 3

[alanjstr]

Maybe this should be relegated to the Tabbed Browser Extension

Comment 4

[Jesse Ruderman]

I agree that "open in tabs" should skip bookmarklets.  It doesn't make sense to
load a bookmarklet by itself, because bookmarklets act on pages that are already
loaded.

See also bug 138198, "open link in new tab" doesn't work for javascript links.

Comment 5

[Jeremy M. Dolan]

I think there are possibilities for useful "load a bookmarklet by itself" type
bookmarklets, perhaps a script that loaded a certain URL based on the time, or
day of the week, or something along those lines. Probably others as well.

But see paragraph 2 in comment 2. The disadvantages may outweight.

Comment 6

[timeless]

some of my bookmarklets on http://viper.haque.net/~timeless/bookmarks.html
do useful things when loaded standalone (mostly they just prompt for input).
i don't care one way or the other. i can't imagine putting bookmarklets into a
folder that i'm likely to open in tabs.

Comment 7

[David Tenser [:djst]]

> I agree that "open in tabs" should skip bookmarklets.  It doesn't make sense
> to load a bookmarklet by itself, because bookmarklets act on pages that are
> already loaded.

It also doesn't make any sense to try to open a bookmark folder in tabs if you
know it contains bookmarklets. Place your bookmarklets in one folder and just
don't open that one in tabs!

Suggest WONTFIX. 

Comment 8

[Jesse Ruderman]

> Place your bookmarklets in one folder

As the reporter mentioned, there can only be one bookmarks toolbar folder (bug
202299?).

> It also doesn't make any sense to try to open a bookmark folder in tabs if you
> know it contains bookmarklets.

So why allow it?  I've accidentally middle-clicked my
folders-full-of-bookmarklets once or twice.

Comment 9

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

taking QA contact, sorry about the bugspam

Comment 10

[Karl Guertin]

Firebird is designed to try to cater to the needs of the majority and to pick
reasonable defaults. Now I won't argue that either bookmark folders nor
bookmarklets are average user features but together they're even more esoteric
than any of the developers I know (even jesse) use. The one and only use
scenario I can come up with is to use jesse's zap bookmarklets in a folder, but
he also provides a zap all which does the same thing. I doubt you'll find a
group that does more bookmarklets than the people CC'd on this bug and if we
can't collectively come up with a use, it's doubtful that anyone would. 

This all pushes for the skipping of js bookmarks, but we're so esoteric here
that I doubt anyone will do this bug. I mean if it's implemented, who gains? The
few of us who use bookmarklets and tabs together. If it's not, who loses? The
same group. None of us are going to quit the project over the issue. I'd suggest
futuring this bug and marking it helpwanted.

Comment 11

[Tim Powell]

I use a number of bookmarklets that build date-based URLs for various sites. For
example, some of these construct URLs like http://hostname/YYYY/MM/DD where the
date varies and I use these to look up the appropriate content for the day. The
current behavior is quite nice as these are essentially bookmarks. My
bookmarklets that act on various websites are stored in a separate folder, so I
don't see the problem. I'd WONTFIX.

Comment 12

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

sorry for bugspam, long-overdue mass reassign of ancient QA contact bugs, filter on "beltznerLovesGoats" to get rid of this mass change

Comment 13

[David Dahl :ddahl]

The last comment of relevance here is  over 4 years old. WONTFIX seems appropriate anyway. I can see how some would want this implemented, but it really only affects a very small number of users.

Comment 14

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Bug 451915 - move Firefox/Places bugs to Firefox/Bookmarks and History. Remove all bugspam from this move by filtering for the string "places-to-b-and-h".

In Thunderbird 3.0b, you do that as follows:
Tools | Message Filters
Make sure the correct account is selected. Click "New"
Conditions: Body   contains   places-to-b-and-h
Change the action to "Delete Message".
Select "Manually Run" from the dropdown at the top.
Click OK.

Select the filter in the list, make sure "Inbox" is selected at the bottom, and click "Run Now". This should delete all the bugspam. You can then delete the filter.

Gerv