90992 - links in mail msg should open in last-active browser window, not oldest window

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(MailNews Core :: Backend, defect)

Description

[bobj]

In Netscape 4.x, if I click on a link in a mail message it opens in
the topmost browser window.  When using 4.x, I would often alt-tab (in
Windows) to bring to the top the browser window that I want to use
for opening a link in a mail message, then al-tab back to the message
and click the link.  That does not work in Mozilla.  I'm not sure how
mail determines which browser window to use.

Comment 1

[Scott MacGregor]

*** Bug 90993 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 2

[Michal 'hramrach' Suchanek]

Well, when I clicked on a link in mail it seemed nothing happened. The problem
was the link showed in a tab that happened (surprisingly) to already show a web
page and happened to be on another desktop. I do not know how the tab was
selected but I usually have web pages shown for some reason and do not want them
to change to something I was sent in email. And it may be hard to find the
correct window if you have ten of them already opened.

I think links from email should open in completely new window or the same window
as the email (could an email window change into browser window? At least in the
window I get from search which shows just the one message and some toolbars I
wouls expect it to do so unless new window is explicitly requsted).

Comment 3

[Michal 'hramrach' Suchanek]

seems related to bug 35578 - may be solved be fixing that

Comment 4

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

*** Bug 111447 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 5

[James Rome]

I agree. This is really annoying. Unless you open in a new window, mail links
always open in the first browser window that was opened, not in the topmost
(active) window. This usually trashes my java api browser window :-(.

Comment 6

[brian]

*** Bug 149948 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 7

[Jesse Ruderman]

*** Bug 62797 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 8

[Craig Nicol]

I notice that if I click links from Eudora, they DO open in the last selected
Mozilla window, but when I click from inside Mozilla, they open in the original
Mozilla window's currently selected tab (i.e. in the window that loaded up when
I open Mozilla).

I guess that suggests a work-around of faking the open-window message from 'Mail
& Newsgroups' to appear to be external to Mozilla, but I don't know how hard
that would be.

I've taken to middle-clicking (open-in-new-tab) links from newsgroups to prevent
this behaviour. Surely it cannot be too hard to add a 'When I click a
newsgroup/mail message, send it to...' option, with at least an 'existing' and a
'new' window selection?

Comment 9

[Craig Nicol]

I have found a workaround for this. I am using tabbed browsing, and have my
middle button set to open a link in a new tab. When I middle-click a link in the
message window, it opens a new tab in the last-active browser window. Of course,
the bug still needs fixed, but this might help until it does.

Comment 10

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

do yo ustill see this at any time?

Comment 11

[James Rome]

I do not see this now

Comment 12

[Joshua Cranmer [:jcranmer]]

RESO WFM per last comment.