Closed Bug 214819 Opened 21 years ago Closed 20 years ago

sidebar - can't add tabs [bad link dirt.netscape.com]

Categories

(SeaMonkey :: Sidebar, defect)

Product:
SeaMonkey
Component:
Sidebar
Platform:
x86
All
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
major

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
VERIFIED FIXED
Milestone:
mozilla1.7alpha

People

(Reporter: rnorberg, Assigned: irongut)

References

Details

Attachments

(2 files)

proposed short-term fix
1.14 KB, patch
Details | Diff | Splinter Review
1.7 branch patch for short term fix
1.17 KB, patch
Details | Diff | Splinter Review 
User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624

sidebar/tabs/customize sidebar/find more tabs..." bad link dirt.netscape.com
  The link for adding more tabs to the sidebar ( search, bookmarks, history) is
bad.  "Connection refused"

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.open sidebar/tabs/customize sidebar/find more tabs..."  
2.dirt.netscape.com is automaitcally opened
3.

Actual Results:  
the connection is refused

Expected Results:  
webpage should open with a list of tabs that you can add to your sidebar.
Mozilla 2003080103-trunk/OS X these actions lead me to:

http://dmoz.org/Netscape/Sidebar/


oh, and...
-> Sidebar
Assignee: chanial → shliang
Component: Bookmarks → Sidebar
QA Contact: petersen → sujay
Verifying 2003072904 PC/WinXP

Even dmoz's sidebar links depend on dirt.netscape.com to install, and apparently
that server is gone.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
I have in the past reported this to webmaster@netscape.com, webmaster@dmoz.org,
and through the Help feedback form at http://help.netscape.com/feedback.html but
never received a response from any of them.
This seems fixed because I get a nice list on: http://dmoz.org/Netscape/Sidebar/
FAIL Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031007
Did you look at the links in http://dmoz.org/Netscape/Sidebar/?
They all fail - they point to dirt.netscape.com
Yeah so I notices. They all fail for me. So your steps to reproduce this bug are
a bit confusing.

New steps to Reproduce:
1)open the sidebar with F9 or menu/view/show-hide/sidebar
2)click on 'Tabs' and select either menu item 'Customize Sidebar...' or 'Sidebar
Directory...'
3)click on 'Find more tabs' in case you used 'Customize Sidebar...'
4)select any of thelinks on http://dmoz.org/Netscape/Sidebar/ to install the
selected sidebar

Current result: you click on a link like this:

<a
href="http://info.netscape.com/fwd/sidusdir/http://dirt.netscape.com/cgi-bin/sidebar.cgi?title=Amy+Pietz+Info&URL=http://www.execpc.com/~mdh/amypietz/sidebar.html">Amy
Pietz Info</a>

and http://info.netscape.com/fwd/sidusdir redirects you to
http://dirt.netscape.com but that server is no longer available, like Bill Mason
  pointed out in comment #2, and that's why we end up with the error: "The
connection was refused when attemting to contact dirt.netscape.com"

What we need is a server with that CGI script but I don't know what that script did.
Wouldn't this be more an evangelism bug to get the dmoz.org site to update their
links. Looking at the site it needs volunteers to edit this category.

However, if they don't, do we have another site we can link to with valid links?
Well, maybe this has something to do with the AOL/Time Warner -> The Mozilla
Foundation transition for the mozilla browser. Maybe more Netscape services will
be lost over time, who nows? For example, who do you think will/can update
http://devedge.netscape.com/ now that all Netscape browser employees have been
dismissed months ago...
The following HTML (courtesy of Netscape DevEdge) can be used to create
sidebars, without dirt.netscape.com


<html>
  <head>
    <title> test </title>

<!-- This code is © Netscape Communications Corporation, 2003 -->

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"> 


   function addNetscapePanel() { 
      if ((typeof window.sidebar == "object") && (typeof window.sidebar.addPanel
== "function")) 
      { 
         window.sidebar.addPanel ("INSERT NAME HERE", 
         "INSERT URL HERE",""); 
      } 
      else 
      { 
         var rv = window.confirm ("This page is enhanced for use with Netscape
6/7.  " 
            + "Would you like to upgrade now?"); 
         if (rv) 
            document.location.href = "http://home.netscape.com/download/index.html";
      } 
   } 
//--> 

</SCRIPT>
</head>
<body>
<a href="javascript:addNetscapePanel()"><img
src="http://devedge.netscape.com/viewsource/2002/sidebar/add-button.gif"
alt="Add to Sidebar"></a>
</body>
</html>

Insert the name in the specified location, and insert the URL in the URL
location and you should be sorted...

NB: The "URL" is a bit in the full URL i.e
http://info.netscape.com/fwd/sidusdir/http://dirt.netscape.com/cgi-bin/sidebar.cgi?title=Amy+Pietz+Info&URL=http://www.execpc.com/~mdh/amypietz/sidebar.html
means the URL is  http://www.execpc.com/~mdh/amypietz/sidebar.html means the URL
is  .

Hth, and if you really want dirt.nscp.com back (dirt01 and dirt04 are still up i
think, but they dont have the script) contact netscape's "world headquarters"
and ask for the IC people maybe?
Surely not being able to add sidebars from a page linked to from the Add Sidebar
dialog is a major usability issue?

One possible solution to this ... contact dmoz.org and get them to update the
URL. I see there is no volunteer for this category.
Severity: normal → major
Flags: blocking1.7a?
OS: Windows 2000 → All
Summary: sidebar - find more tabs bad link dirt.netscape.com → sidebar - can't add tabs [bad link dirt.netscape.com]
Target Milestone: --- → mozilla1.7alpha
Any idea how we can contact the DMOZ staff other than phoning up Netscape HQ and
hoping that AOL have kept at least one person on to operate dmoz?

Cheers :)
Flags: blocking1.7a?
erk.. didnt mean to remove that flag. Sorry :/
Flags: blocking1.7a+
Possible short term solution. Use:

http://channel.netscape.com/sidebar/sbd/index.tmpl
Assignee: shliang → neil.parkwaycc.co.uk
QA Contact: sujay → asa
(In reply to comment #13)
> Possible short term solution. Use:
> 
> http://channel.netscape.com/sidebar/sbd/index.tmpl

yup seems Netscape have fixed their site :)

works for me.
re-nominating.  only drivers can set (+) blocking flags.
Flags: blocking1.7a+ → blocking1.7a?
it wasnt me who had originally set it (but i had accidently unset it) thus I set
it again. The Netscape site appears to be working for now, which is good since i
doubt dirt.netscape.com will be back.
Better would be to have our own sidebar directory and not rely on a Netscape
resource which could dissapear at any time. This could be done as a mozdev
project similar to the Themes project.

I'd be willing to help, any other volunteers?
Depends on: 216166
Depends on: 49367
It does help to remove the old dependency too...
No longer depends on: 216166
Seeking review. This patches changes the default sidebar directory to:
http://channel.netscape.com/sidebar/sbd/index.tmpl
Daniel Wang and myself have started a sidebar directory project on mozdev.

I'd request you leave any patch until we have something up and running (soon
hopefully) and then link to sidebars.mozdev.org.
Assignee: neil.parkwaycc.co.uk → stolenclover
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
Flags: blocking1.7a? → blocking1.7a-
Daniel, irongut, what is the status of sidebars.mozdev.org? Is it ready to go live?
(In reply to comment #21)
Is a good idea to add other user-oriented project to the Mozdev during time,
when mozdev has problems with bandwidth?

What some sidebars.mozilla.org? or sidebars.mozillazine.org?
There could be only world-wide sidebars. The country oriented sidebars and
english sidebars can be on different servers (e.g. Czech sidebars are on
http://www.czilla.cz/sidebars/panels/all-panels.rdf now) and the main server
should only link to them.

(In reply to comment #21)
> Daniel, irongut, what is the status of sidebars.mozdev.org? Is it ready to go
live?

Unfortunaely no.

Daniel chose to use xhtml which I'm not familiar with so I haven't been able to
help. Having a look at the site he's got a basic framework up so I'll contact
him again and see if I can help now.

Requesting blocking 1.7. I know it's late in the game, but perhaps we could just
use the attached patch for the 1.7-branch only to have a working sidebar page in
the next release? For 1.8 and later sidebars.mozdev.org may be ready.
Flags: blocking1.7?
Comment on attachment 140594 [details] [diff] [review]
proposed short-term fix


This patch was based on r3.471.8.2,
which was
Mozilla: v1.5rc2, v1.5
FireBird: v0.7, v0.7.1

It has much bitrotted:
no more "custtoolbar",
--> no more "sidebar", <--
only |prefs.converted-to-utf8| remains, at
http://lxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/modules/libpref/src/init/all.js#717.

This patch should probably be obsoleted;
I don't know about the current bug status...
Good catch. It looks like they have moved to browser-prefs.js

http://lxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/xpfe/bootstrap/browser-prefs.js#166

I don't have a 1.7 tree currently ... if someone does please roll off a new
patch if you get a chance.
Change the two prefs in browser-prefs.js.
plussing for now. another solution might be to simply remove the feature.
Flags: blocking1.7? → blocking1.7+
I may be able to just edit the sidebar listings at dmoz or find someone who can.
Another alternative might be to use sidebars.mozdev.org, if that indeed will
ultimately be the sidebars place, and just redirect to a working location, e.g.
http://channel.netscape.com/sidebar/sbd/index.tmpl, in the interim, ?
(In reply to comment #30)
> Another alternative might be to use sidebars.mozdev.org, if that indeed will
> ultimately be the sidebars place, and just redirect to a working location, e.g.
> http://channel.netscape.com/sidebar/sbd/index.tmpl, in the interim, ?

I can setup a redirect for now if that's what is wanted. Just let me know.

BTW had no reply from Daniel about the project.
> Another alternative might be to use sidebars.mozdev.org,

The intent for sidebars.mozdev.org is to manage a list of sidebars that browser
vendors can use. Currently browsers that support sidebars are Mozilla, Opera,
and Konqueror (I think). Because the sidebars listed in Mozilla are actually
remote RDFs, and Mozilla queries for the files every time the user open the
Customize Sidebar dialog, I'd prefer mozilla.org hosts these files on their
servers. For Web directory, I think we should direct to mozilla.org, which then
redirect to sidebars.mozdev.org (provided, that sidebars.mozdev.org is
completed). If the traffic is too high, we can then host the Web pages on
mozilla.org.

btw, irongut, I think you have CVS access to the sidebars project. I don't have
time for this now, so please go ahead developing the site :-)
Assignee: stolenclover → irongut
Status: ASSIGNED → NEW
I've got access to the dmoz.org netscape sidebar category so I can edit the
listings there.  If I can manage that, this bug doesn't need to be a blocker. If
I can't fix the links then we'll need to temporarily update the link to point to
something working, probably the other Netscape URL or a mozilla.org url with a
redirect to the netscape URL. 
So I can hand-edit each of the links at dmoz but without the server that
contains the javascript for adding sidebars, I'm kinda stuck. I guess I could
turn them all into javascript URLs that contain the add sidebar script but I'm
not sure if that's the right way to go. The other alternative would be to point
to one of our (mozilla.org or mozdev if it could handle the traffic) servers
that handled that but I don't have the expertise to set that up. What do you all
think? 
OK, I'm gonna just javascript url them all, so here's what it'll look like:

http://info.netscape.com/fwd/sidusdir/http://dirt.netscape.com/cgi-bin/sidebar.cgi?title=Amy+Pietz+Info&URL=http://www.execpc.com/~mdh/amypietz/sidebar.html
becomes
javascript:window.sidebar.addPanel('Amy Pietz
Info','http://www.execpc.com/~mdh/amypietz/sidebar.html','')

Anyone have any objections before I go to work on this?
OK. This is no longer a blocker. The sidebar listings that currently go through
the dead dirt server are all being updated (thanks Don Wiebe!!) to just have
javascript URLs as noted in my above comment. 

I think that long-term, we should put a link into the client that we control and
redirect to dmoz or whatver sidebar directory makes sense (even the dmoz
directory might move, from Netscape to Mozilla categories, for example).
Flags: blocking1.7+
(In reply to comment #35)
> Anyone have any objections before I go to work on this?

The addPanel function has 3 parameters.

See
http://lxr.mozilla.org/mozilla/source/xpfe/components/sidebar/src/nsSidebar.js#114

114 nsSidebar.prototype.addPanel =
115 function (aTitle, aContentURL, aCustomizeURL)

The third parameter is URL on which can user configure some sidebar settings
(Mozilla has button for customising current sidebar in the sidebar manager).

Although the 3th parameter is not used enough (practically nobody is using it
now), but we should still support it as optional parameter.

So it can be:

http://info.netscape.com/fwd/sidusdir/http://dirt.netscape.com/cgi-bin/sidebar.cgi?title=Amy+Pietz+Info&URL=http://www.execpc.com/~mdh/amypietz/sidebar.html&config=http://www.execpc.com/~mdh/amypietz/config.html

javascript:window.sidebar.addPanel('Amy Pietz
Info','http://www.execpc.com/~mdh/amypietz/sidebar.html','http://www.execpc.com/~mdh/amypietz/config.html')

And the 3th parameter should be only optional.

this is now fixed.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 20 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
Status: RESOLVED → VERIFIED
Product: Browser → Seamonkey
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