109137 - format differences btwn http and ftp listings

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Core :: Networking, defect)

Description

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

found this while testing bug 99169. there are several diffs in what's displayed
[both in html] btwn an ftp listing and an http listing. 

a. http has sortable links at the top for Name, Last Modified, Size and
Description. ftp does not.
b. http has many more specific icons [for filetype] than ftp --methinks this
might be expected, however...
c. ftp lacks a Description column, but again that might be expected.
d. the order of info in an http listing is icon, file name, last mod date, file
size and description. the order of info in a ftp listing is icon, file name,
file size, last mod date.
e. the link to go up a dir is called "Parent Directory" in http, but "Up a
higher level directory" in ftp.
f. file sizes in http are in "XXXk" format, whereas it's "XXX KB" in ftp.
[differences in case, abbreviation and whitespace].


bradley, let me know if i should file seperate bugs on these differences! or, if
you have others that cover 'em. or, explanations as to why they should differ. :)

anyhow, for example, compare:

  ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/nightly/

  http://hopey.mcom.com/tests/

i'll attach screenshots, since the sample http link is nscp-internal.

Comment 1

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

Attachment: http listing

Comment 2

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

Attachment: ftp listing

actually, this is a better ftp listing showing files and a dir:
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/nightly/2001-07-05-04-trunk/

Comment 3

[Simon Fraser [no longer active]]

Note that http listings are server-generated, not client-generated, so we don't 
have any control about how they appear.

Comment 4

[Bradley Baetz (:bbaetz)]

As Simon mentions, http (and ftp through a proxy) dir listings are not generated
by us.

a) Not worth the effort for html mode.b) We could determine the mimetype of each
image, and do what 4.x did. I think I have a bug on that already. Again, I don't
see the point - we're only guessing, really, and most types would just be
"binary file"
c) Theres nothing in the description column, so I don't see the point of having
one, or what to put there. 4.x would put "unix tar archive" for a .tar
file.d/e/f) Thats just the way we do it. I don't see an advantage in one way
over the other, really.

Comment 5

[Bradley Baetz (:bbaetz)]

se: Can I close this out as INVALID, or do you think that it is worth doing one
of these suggestions?

Comment 6

[benc]

I say, rename the bug to something like "FTP:HTML view should display a file
"description". We should just bite the bullet and do extension->description mapping.

Comment 7

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

comment #4: d/e/f) Thats just the way we do it. I don't see an advantage in one
way over the other, really.

d'you mean we don't have *any* control over the d) column order or e) parent
link text or f) the kilobyte format? i just want to know if that's the case. if
that's not the case, then we should clean things up to be consistent, where
possible. true, that might seem nitpicky, but this is a minor [i can even mark
it trivial] polish bug after all --and therefore should not be marked Invalid.
:-) but, again, do let me know if any of those three items would be do-able!

Comment 8

[Bradley Baetz (:bbaetz)]

benc: internally, the displayed name is the 'description', because we do get one
of those for gopher. The mime handler does have info abou tthe decription, so it
is possible. I just don't see the point. I'll put it on the UI review list, though.

se: We have no control over http.

d) No, not really. ftp does do the sorting, though, so it is possible in theory
(or I could add some js, but it would only work if the user had js enabled)

What url do you get if you click on one of the columns? Something like
ftp://foo/bar/?xxx. What happens if theres a file called ?xxx in the directory?

e) Thats easy to change, since its in a .dtd. Again, I'll put it on the UI
review list, and see.

f) Ditto. (Theres a separate rfe on adding thousands separators, but we don't
have a function to do that, and theres an i18n bug on that)

Comment 9

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

when looking at an http listing, i get the following url's when clicking the
sort links at the top:

example: http://hopey.mcom.com/tests/

* sorting by Name: http://hopey.mcom.com/tests/?N=A
* sorting by Last modified: http://hopey.mcom.com/tests/?M=A
* sorting by Size: http://hopey.mcom.com/tests/?S=A
* sorting by Description: http://hopey.mcom.com/tests/?D=A

and, if i click the sort links again, they're sorted in descending order --and
the 'A' [ascending] at the end of the url is replaced with a 'D'.

Comment 10

[Bradley Baetz (:bbaetz)]

And what if there exists a file http://hopey.mcom.com/tests/?N=A

?

Note that http uses escaping, whilst ftp doesn't

Comment 11

[Bradley Baetz (:bbaetz)]

I think its fine how it is. More advanced stuff like sorting and so on relaly
needs the XUL thingy

WFM.