111175 - [RFE] add Mozilla as a helper app

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 21985

(Core Graveyard :: File Handling, enhancement)

Description

[Jo Hermans]

Build 2001112009 (regular 0.9.6) on NT

This is something which bugs me a long time. Quite often, I have to download
files from webservers that don't have a good MIME-setting and possibly not even
a file-extension (Mac-files for instance). Mozilla shows the standard helper
dialog box, which allows me to choose between saving on the disk and using a
helper application. But quite often, I just want to open the file in Mozilla
anyway, because I know that it's a text-file, a html-file, or one of the
supported image-formats.

Now I have to save it to disk first, and then use Mozilla to open the file.
Since Mozilla will then use the file-extension, it will often open the file
correctly, or it will at the very least just show the contents in a browser
window. I know that it uses MIME when surfing the web, and extensions when
surfing a local disk, and I'm not complaining about that (that's another bug or
a feature or whatever you might call it - it just confuses ordinary users).

It would be very useful that Mozilla would just give an option to open the file
immediately inside the browser window ('internal viewer'), just like Netscape
4.* did. So you can choose between 'Save as', 'open with a helper application'
or 'open in internal viewer'.

Comment 1

[Jo Hermans]

see also bug 11181

Comment 2

[Dimitrios]

This isn't exactly bug 110492 but that bug handles the issue in a simpler
manner, I think (no need to clutter with additional options). Anyway, confirming
since there's no similar enhancement request, so far.

Comment 3

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

file handling

Comment 4

[Jesse Ruderman]

See also bug 21985, [RFE] "view as text" option for unknown mime type.  I've 
never seen a server send an image file with a bogus mime type (except 
text/plain), and Mozilla doesn't have code to guess the type of a file based on 
a content, so maybe this should just be marked as a dup of bug 21985.

Comment 5

[Dimitrios]

> Mozilla doesn't have code to guess the type of a file based on content.

Good point. Reporter, could you please give us a testcase? It must be a link where:
a. the webserver doesn't provide a good MIME-setting and possibly not even
file-extension for a given file and
b. the file is either html or image (i.e. not text)

Comment 6

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

> Mozilla doesn't have code to guess the type of a file based on content

Um... nsUnknownDecoder.cpp at your service.

So what we want is an "ignore server-provided mimetype and just try to view
this" option, right?

This could be a bit more flexible than "view as text" (similar implementation,
though, I suspect).

Comment 7

[Jo Hermans]

I wasn't talking about html-files, becuase Mozilla seems to always get the type
right (from the extension I guess). I was talking about text-files which Mozilla
didn't guess, like a setup.ini file. Mozilla is perfectly capable of displaying
that file, but there's no way to tell Mozilla to do that. The workaroudn is to
save thge file first, and then to open the file directly.

The direct reason why I wrote this bugraport, was that I had installed 0.9.6 on
my dekstop, but Mozilla was completely useless for any attachments. I receive
lots of *.txt, *.log, *.ini, *.c, *.h and similar files as attachments, but I
had to install all mime-handlers all over again (after each new install, Mozilla
seems to forget them). Windows NT have the correct file-assoications (icons and
all), but they were never used, unlike *.doc and *.xls files for instance.

I'm not directly complaining about the installation procedure, that it should
install the correct file-associations, becuase that's probably caused by an
error on my side. You see, I'm using gvim as my text-editor, and that must have
some bugs. Yes, I'm using vi on Windows NT, I'm also using it on my Mac, thank
you (I must be the only person whocuses vi on a Mac :-)

What I wanted to have here, was a fast way to tell to Mozilla, that is should
trust me, that this file *really* is a text-file, and it can be shown in a
browser window. If Mozilla is a bit cleverder, and it will recognize it as a
html-file, or an image file or whatever, that's even better. But most of these
files can be shown anyway (if they're text), without that workaround. I just
hate to install all those mime-types all over again, because the file comes with
a slight different extensions : *.h, *.m, *.hxx, *.h++, *.c, *.C, *.cc, *.cxx,
*.c++, *, cpp, ... are all text-files. I have no objection against the
helper-dialog box in itself, there should just be a simpler way to use the
'internal viewer'. You can compare it with the  'view' dialog box in WinZip for
instance : that gives you access to an internal viewer, notepad or an external
viewer. No installation necessary. See also bug 111181 (I used the wrong number
above, sorry).

And yes, it's a dup of bug 21985 .

In a short sentence : I don't really care about file-associations or mime-type
or whatever. Mozilla should give me the option to show the file immediately. If
it displays as garabage on my screen, so be it. This happens quite often anyway
with Mac-image files (web-servers normally give no mime-type for files without
extensions).

Comment 8

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Marking duplicate per comments.  If things go right, that bug may get resolved
soonish... (if we get the mime info cache to behave).

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 21985 ***

Comment 9

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

v