286745 - Open externally-launched links in a new tab or window

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(SeaMonkey :: UI Design, enhancement)

Description

[Jez]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.6) Gecko/20050225 Firefox/1.0.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8b) Gecko/20050217

Current default behviour of Mozilla is to open an externally-launched link in
the current tab in the most recent window.  The general consensus is that this
is not the most sensible behaviour, because pages already being viewed will be
overwritten and this can wipe out form data, as well as being plain annoying. 
This bug is filed with the intention of attaching a patch to change the default
behaviour to opening in a new tab in the most recent window, or a new window
altogether.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open a page in Mozilla by lauching it from an external app.

Actual Results:  
Opens in current tab in most recent window.

Expected Results:  
Open in new tab, or new window.

Comment 1

[Jez]

Attachment: Patch to make externally-launched links open in new tab (Seamonkey only)

Comment 2

[Jez]

Attachment: Patch to make externally-launched links open in new tab (Seamonkey only)

Oops, was a bit hasty there - the previous patch was my Firefox one, please
disregard.

Comment 3

[Jez]

Attachment: Patch to make externally-launched links open in new window (Seamonkey only)

Comment 4

[Jez]

Neil, please r+ & checkin one of these patches... I leave it for you to decide
which behaviour is preferable, but either are far preferble to the current
default behaviour. :-)

all.js is left alone so Firefox is unaffected, that will be dealt with
seperately in bug #275430.

Comment 5

[Robert Kaiser]

We should follow the same path here as we do for e.g. middle-click on links and
such stuff. If we prefer opening new tabs for such actions, we should also do
that here. I think though that we do use new window by default (not sure), and
then this is the way to go.

Comment 6

[Jez]

Robert: not 100% sure what you mean; the current default behaviour is to open
externally-launched links in the current tab in the most recent browser window.

Comment 7

[Dan M]

Comment on attachment 177879 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch to make externally-launched links open in new window (Seamonkey only)

No, and no.

1) We don't need two separate competing patches. We need to figure out what we
want to do and then submit one patch.

2) Splitting this from the identical Firefox bug  275430 seems like make-work,
though I suppose in a pedantic way it's not completely uncalled for.

3) If we're going to consider moving the browser.link prefs out of all.js into
browser-specific territory, let's not do it one pref at a time.

Neil, you may want to choose to keep both bugs open, but I think splitting this
into two bugs overcomplicates the matter.

Comment 8

[Dan M]

Comment on attachment 177879 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch to make externally-launched links open in new window (Seamonkey only)

After on off-line discussion, we're all agreed that this bug is the best way to
handle the Suite. See bug 275430 comment 23. I'm reversing my minus review.
However we need to know which value the generic pref in all.js will take to
know whether a Suite-specific patch is necessary at all.

Comment 9

[Jez]

Re-requested r? and sr? for the Seamonkey-only 'new window' patch.

Neil, it's looking like the Firefox version of this bug, #275430, is gonna set
the all.js default behaviour to open in a new tab rather than a window.  I
prefer the window behaviour and think the suite, at least, should use this. 
Regardless, I think both the suite and Firefox prefs files should have this
setting in the besides all.js.

Comment 10

[Jez]

Attachment: browser-prefs.js patch v2, better commenting, all 3 prefs transferred

Mike Connor-inspired improvement on the previous patch for Seamonkey's prefs.

Comment 11

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Comment on attachment 178170 [details] [diff] [review]
browser-prefs.js patch v2, better commenting, all 3 prefs transferred

checked in as part of bug 287086