129934 - Support for References/In-Reply-To in mailto links

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 260482

(MailNews Core :: Backend, enhancement)

Description

[Matthew Blanchard]

Netscape 4.x and IE support the 'References' parameter in mailto links.

Example:

<a href="
mailto:[e-mail]?
Subject=blah&amp;
References=&lt;002d01c1a803$063e50c0$[e-mail]&gt;&amp;
In-Reply-To=&lt;002d01c1a803$063e50c0$[e-mail]&gt;
">

(Some browsers support 'In-Reply-To' too.)

However, Mozilla does not support it.

Support for 'References'/'In-Reply-To' is very useful, since it allows for a
'reply' link in web-interfaces for mailing lists. W3C's archives use this
technique and I think that the default templates of Hypermail use it too.

Example:

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-sgml-wg/1997Aug/0004.html

(see the 'response to this message' link.)

Comment 1

[R.K.Aa.]

"In Reply To" is bug 78117, "References" is bug 62033
Resolving as dup of bug 78117.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 78117 ***

Comment 2

[Matthew Blanchard]

Excuse me, but I believe my RFE has just been incorrectly marked as a duplicate 
of some other bugs:

Bug 62033, "Should display |References| links in message display window", has 
nothing to do with recognizing the 'Reference' parameter in 'mailto:' links.

As for bug 78117, "Include In-Reply-To header when sending replies": Mozilla 
_does_ support the 'References' field, yet it _doesn't_ recognize it at 
the 'mailto:' link, so why supporting the 'In-Reply-To' field should change the 
picture? Including the 'In-Reply-To' header when sending replies still doesn't 
mean recognizing the 'In-Reply-To' parameter in 'mailto:' links.

Another important point to make is that supporting 'In-Reply-To' in 'mailto:' 
links is actually _not_ necessary.

Supporting the 'References' parameter should be enough.

Microsoft Outlook Express, for example, doesn't support 'In-Reply-To' 
in 'mailto:' links, and qmail's documentation hints that 'In-Reply-To's syntax 
is complicated, is not strictly followed, and that 'References' should be 
preferred.

Comment 3

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Patch in progress for this at the dupe.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 260482 ***