133362 - -compose needs to accept mailto: (treat all "hanging" command parameter as URLs?)

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 209403

(Core Graveyard :: Cmd-line Features, enhancement)

Description

[Steve Meredith (gone)]

If the -compose command line argument were changed to allow a complete mailto:
URL, a user could configure IE to use Mozilla Mail as the app to use when a
mailto: URL is clicked on. You can pass a URL to -compose, but mail interprets
it as a page to attach.

When you click on a mailto: URL in IE, IE looks in the registry for the default
mail application to use, and passes the entire mailto: URL to that app. You can
almost set it up correctly now using "mozilla.exe -compose to=%1", but that puts
the entire mailto: URL in the To field, not just the address as Mozilla expects.

For details on setting up IE to use a different mail app, see
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/workshop/browser/configuration/clientreg/clientregistrylayout.asp

Comment 1

[Jean-Francois Ducarroz]

-->varada

Comment 2

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

taking all of varada's bugs.

Comment 3

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Note that the desired action is possible using -mail rather than -compose:
   mozilla -mail mailto:[e-mail]
in Windows, configure for
   "<path>\mozilla.exe" -mail "%1"

Given that -compose with no args starts an empty composition window,
it makes a lot of sense to make this change.

Comment 4

[Daniel Wang]

see http://www.mozilla.org/docs/command-line-args.html for -compose syntax.
Since mozilla mailto:[e-mail] and mozilla -mail mailto:[e-mail] work
(except annoyance bug 204752) -> wfm

Comment 5

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

I think that's a short-sighted resolution, and I am boggled that an ENHANCMENT 
can be marked WorksForMe.  The program may work well enough for you, Daniel, but 
it is inconsistent in its design.  The   -mail   switch is designed to bring up 
the mail window, and the   -compose    switch is designed to bring up a compose 
window.  It is a fluke that    -mail <URL>    brings up the compose window (and 
only the compose window, not the mail window).

Comment 6

[Daniel Wang]

Reopen bug for consideration by module owner.

But consider the following:
1. -compose follows special syntax different from mailto:, and that
  could lead to problems
2. current -compose syntax is the same as Netscape 4.x's
3. you can't do attachment and possibly more from mailto:, so we
  shouldn't change the syntax

Maybe we should handle all "hanging" parameter as URL, e.g. if
a parameter is ill-formed, the command handler just spit it out
to the URL command handler.

Comment 7

[Daniel Wang]

-> xp app:cmd-line features

Comment 8

[Scott MacGregor]

this sounds like a dup of a bug I did for mozilla thunderbird to add mailto
support as a window argument to the compose window:

http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=209403

I believe this is a dup of that. This allows thunderbird to receive mailto url
clicks from browsers like firebird and IE. I suspect it addresses this issue to.

Marking as a dup. 


*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 209403 ***