Closed Bug 1408044 Opened 7 years ago Closed 7 years ago

Stop shipping about:

Categories

(Firefox :: General, defect, P3)

Product:
Firefox
Component:
General
Type:
defect

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED FIXED
Milestone:
Firefox 59
Tracking Flags:
Tracking Status
relnote-firefox --- 59+
firefox57 --- wontfix
firefox58 --- wontfix
firefox59 --- fixed

People

(Reporter: marcia, Assigned: Gijs)

References

Details

Attachments

(6 files)

Screen Shot 2017-10-12 at 11.47.06 AM.png
53.97 KB, image/png
Details
Bug 1408044 - stop using about.dtd as an example in firefox-ui/puppeteer/marionette docs/tests,
59 bytes, text/x-review-board-request
whimboo
: review+
Details
Bug 1408044 - stop using/overriding about: in Fennec and use about:fennec/firefox instead,
59 bytes, text/x-review-board-request
nalexander
: review+
Details
Bug 1408044 - remove the 'about:' page from toolkit,
59 bytes, text/x-review-board-request
dao
: review+
Details
Bug 1408044 - stop trying to localize the toolkit about.dtd file in mobile code,
59 bytes, text/x-review-board-request
nalexander
: review+
Details
Bug 1408044 - fix miscellaneous tests that depended on about: existing,
59 bytes, text/x-review-board-request
dao
: review+
Details 
Seen while running Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.13; rv:57.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/57.0, 20171009192146

STR:
1. Load about page on Mac
2. Observe attached screenshot
about: is a leftover from when we switched the about dialog to a new design. We should just remove this.
Component: Theme → General
OS: Mac OS X → All
Priority: -- → P3
Hardware: Unspecified → All
Summary: Firefox logo on about: page has light bar at the bottom of the logo → Stop shipping about:
Version: 57 Branch → Trunk
(In reply to Dão Gottwald [::dao] from comment #1)
> about: is a leftover from when we switched the about dialog to a new design.
> We should just remove this.

When I was halfway done writing the patch for this change, I noticed that it's *actually used* on fennec. Like, it has a UI entrypoint (buried about 5 levels deep, but it has one!), and custom mobile-only styling. :-\

Of course, we can move it to be fennec-only. But yeah, fun and games.
(In reply to :Gijs (slow, PTO recovery mode) from comment #2)
> (In reply to Dão Gottwald [::dao] from comment #1)
> > about: is a leftover from when we switched the about dialog to a new design.
> > We should just remove this.
> 
> When I was halfway done writing the patch for this change, I noticed that
> it's *actually used* on fennec. Like, it has a UI entrypoint (buried about 5
> levels deep, but it has one!), and custom mobile-only styling. :-\
> 
> Of course, we can move it to be fennec-only. But yeah, fun and games.

Hm, so, it looks like fennec completely overrides the file with its own version, and even though it *also* overrides about.css and about.dtd, the latter 2 are only used from its own copy and with a chrome://browser/ URL (instead of chrome://global/ ). So we could, I suppose, keep most of the extant mobile code and it would continue to work, presumably. Still, it also seems like fennec has 3 different aliases for this url (about:, about:firefox and about:fennec) and I would assume it doesn't actually need the "about:" version. Patch to do that coming up, though if there's some reason to keep about: on fennec, just removing the overrides that are no longer overriding anything would also suffice.
Assignee: nobody → gijskruitbosch+bugs
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
status-firefox57: affected → wontfix
status-firefox58: --- → wontfix
status-firefox59: --- → affected
Comment on attachment 8928337 [details]
Bug 1408044 - remove the 'about:' page from toolkit,

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/199546/#review204624

::: toolkit/themes/shared/about.css:33
(Diff revision 1)
>  ul {
>    margin: 0;
>    margin-inline-start: 1.5em;
>    padding: 0;
>  }
>  
>  ul > li {
>    margin-top: .5em;
>  }
>  
>  th, td {
>    padding: 0 5px;
>  }

Numerous pages include `about.css`, not just `about.xhtml`, and as a result the remainder of the style here will just have to linger because it's still used by various other pages, AFAICT, though perhaps in a separate bug we could merge it into in-content/common.css or something.
Comment on attachment 8928337 [details]
Bug 1408044 - remove the 'about:' page from toolkit,

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/199546/#review204816
Attachment #8928337 - Flags: review?(dao+bmo) → review+
Unfortunately I can't seem to build android locally (it throws long java stack errors when building, even after running ./mach bootstrap, and #mobile on IRC is dead at the moment...), so I'm still kind of in the dark as to whether these changes are sufficient. The override stuff the android jar.mn is doing doesn't make a lot of sense because the override paths don't exist, as far as I can see. In any case, I assume removing them is fine, and I will push to try...
Comment on attachment 8928336 [details]
Bug 1408044 - stop using/overriding about: in Fennec and use about:fennec/firefox instead,

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/199544/#review204936

This all is sensible to me.  I don't like the "hidden" `about:` historical choices, but that doesn't block this ticket ;)

::: mobile/android/components/AboutRedirector.js:12
(Diff revision 1)
> -    privileged: true
> -  },
> -
> -  // about:fennec and about:firefox are aliases for about:,
> -  // but hidden from about:about
>    fennec: {

I wonder why we're hiding these.  It's not clear to me what tapping "About" in the Settings page does when it loads `about:firefox`: does that still make sense with the hidden setting?

::: mobile/android/components/AboutRedirector.js:17
(Diff revision 1)
>    fennec: {
>      uri: "chrome://browser/content/about.xhtml",
>      privileged: true,
>      hide: true
>    },
> +  // about:firefox is an alias for about:fennec

nit: blank line, please.
Attachment #8928336 - Flags: review+
Attachment #8928336 - Flags: review?(s.kaspari)
Comment on attachment 8928516 [details]
Bug 1408044 - stop trying to localize the toolkit about.dtd file in mobile code,

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/199770/#review204940

I expect this needs to land before your second patch, since the second patch removed `about.dtd`.  (To keep bisections clean.)

uber-nit: the capitalization in your commit messages is inconsistent.  Slightly less nitty: can you replace "do stuff" with "localize" in the commit message?  There's no mention of l10n in the commit message, which is the relevant piece here.
Attachment #8928516 - Flags: review+
Attachment #8928516 - Flags: review?(s.kaspari)
Comment on attachment 8928336 [details]
Bug 1408044 - stop using/overriding about: in Fennec and use about:fennec/firefox instead,

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/199544/#review204936

> I wonder why we're hiding these.  It's not clear to me what tapping "About" in the Settings page does when it loads `about:firefox`: does that still make sense with the hidden setting?

[Bug 709514](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=709514#c0) has the answer - to avoid duplicated entries all leading to the same page in about:about:
> about:fennec, about:firefox: just aliases for about: (since bug 698593)

So if "about:" goes away, it'd make sense to unhide at least one out of fennec or firefox.
(In reply to Jan Henning [:JanH] from comment #14)
> Comment on attachment 8928336 [details]
> Bug 1408044 - stop using/overriding about: in Fennec and use
> about:fennec/firefox instead,
> 
> https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/199544/#review204936
> 
> > I wonder why we're hiding these.  It's not clear to me what tapping "About" in the Settings page does when it loads `about:firefox`: does that still make sense with the hidden setting?
> 
> [Bug 709514](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=709514#c0) has the
> answer - to avoid duplicated entries all leading to the same page in
> about:about:
> > about:fennec, about:firefox: just aliases for about: (since bug 698593)
> 
> So if "about:" goes away, it'd make sense to unhide at least one out of
> fennec or firefox.

OK. I'll unhide about:firefox . Thanks for clarifying!

Meanwhile, still more a11y tests (that all have the same filename but different paths...) load about: for some reason, so yet another trypush:

https://treeherder.mozilla.org/#/jobs?repo=try&revision=565ac11a8cb2b539a85c6038445683b7381551bf
Comment on attachment 8928335 [details]
Bug 1408044 - stop using about.dtd as an example in firefox-ui/puppeteer/marionette docs/tests,

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/199542/#review205012

::: testing/marionette/doc/api/GeckoDriver.html:8916
(Diff revision 1)
>  
>  
>  <div class="description">
>      <p>Retrieve the localized string for the specified entity id.</p>
>  <p>Example:
> -    localizeEntity([&quot;chrome://global/locale/about.dtd&quot;], &quot;about.version&quot;)</p>
> +    localizeEntity([&quot;chrome://branding/locale/brand.dtd&quot;], &quot;brandShortName&quot;)</p>

There is no need to change any of the HTML files because they are auto-generated by a script. So please remove all of them from the patch.

We haven't run the script for a while, so it will be done when your patch got merged.
Attachment #8928335 - Flags: review?(hskupin) → review+
Comment on attachment 8929015 [details]
Bug 1408044 - fix miscellaneous tests that depended on about: existing,

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/200334/#review205436
Attachment #8929015 - Flags: review?(dao+bmo) → review+
Pushed by gijskruitbosch@gmail.com:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/513140019014
stop using about.dtd as an example in firefox-ui/puppeteer/marionette docs/tests, r=whimboo
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/10fc0a581606
stop trying to localize the toolkit about.dtd file in mobile code, r=nalexander
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/9ceaa645f2a9
stop using/overriding about: in Fennec and use about:fennec/firefox instead, r=nalexander
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/c9a062838c12
remove the 'about:' page from toolkit, r=dao
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/5c5152ad910d
fix miscellaneous tests that depended on about: existing, r=dao
Pushed by gijskruitbosch@gmail.com:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/d13a7f775558
stop using about.dtd as an example in firefox-ui/puppeteer/marionette docs/tests, r=whimboo
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/58aff228e55f
stop trying to localize the toolkit about.dtd file in mobile code, r=nalexander
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/51a16ee3690f
stop using/overriding about: in Fennec and use about:fennec/firefox instead, r=nalexander
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/ab605af4c41e
remove the 'about:' page from toolkit, r=dao
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/24ffaef0d6bb
fix miscellaneous tests that depended on about: existing, r=dao
Release Note Request (optional, but appreciated)
[Why is this notable]: We removed a thing.
[Affects Firefox for Android]: Kind of, but not really. In Android, you can still access what used to be Android's version of "about:" using "about:firefox" (and all UI entrypoints have been updated to that effect). But for the 0 people who ever typed "about:" in their Fennec URL bar, that will now no longer work.
[Suggested wording]: The "about:" page (nothing after the ":") was removed. Use the "About Firefox" dialog instead.
[Links (documentation, blog post, etc)]: n/a

FWIW, maybe this should be relnote-minused. But I figured from a principle of least surprise, I should nominate it (also because of the surprisingly large number of random test consumers, which *might* mean there are other test-y consumers outside of the tree that we might break by this removal).
relnote-firefox: --- → ?
Depends on: 1422543
Sure, why not. That is a good point about people needing to know because of tests breaking.  

Noted for 59 as Changed: The "about:" page was removed. Use the "About Firefox" dialog instead.
relnote-firefox: ? → 59+
Firefox 59.0.1 still has no about:firefox page. It also doesn't appear in about:firefox.

about: was been removed, so now the only user way to get the browser version without resorting to menus seems to be via about:config.

This change was supposed to ship in 59, right? Did it get delayed to a later version for some reason?
doesn't appear in about:about
(In reply to Paul from comment #42)
> Firefox 59.0.1 still has no about:firefox page. It also doesn't appear in
> about:about.

It's not supposed to. about:firefox is a Firefox-for-Android thing.

> about: was been removed, so now the only user way to get the browser version
> without resorting to menus seems to be via about:config.

about:support has the browser version (as well as much else).
Cool, that seems to cover it.

I'll go tell the other -1 people who used about: in Fennec and elsewhere. 
So much for tradition.  The about: page goes all the way back to Mosaic .9x and Netscape 1.x

Lawn, off.
(In reply to Liz Henry (:lizzard) (needinfo? me) from comment #41)
> Sure, why not. That is a good point about people needing to know because of
> tests breaking.  
> 
> Noted for 59 as Changed: The "about:" page was removed. Use the "About
> Firefox" dialog instead.

The nice thing about typing about: in  the address bor (or having it as the start page) was you could see quickly what you were running quickly instead of having to manually traverse the UI to get a pop-up.

About: has been my startup page 1) Because I'm on many different platforms and it's nice to see what version I'm running at startup. and 2) I'm an old **** from NSCP and remember the old about:<username> hack fondly.
(In reply to lohphat from comment #47)
> About: has been my startup page 1) Because I'm on many different platforms
> and it's nice to see what version I'm running at startup. and 2) I'm an old
> **** from NSCP and remember the old about:<username> hack fondly.

It's a bit off-topic here and if needed should be moved to a discussion forum. But one hint for you... in case you want to see the version of Firefox you are running and maybe more data in the title bar, have a look at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/nightly-tester-tools/. For questions or feedback use AMO and please do not reply here, thanks.
Huh.  This has existed for decades and across Firefox's entire lineage, and if I understand correctly, it was removed because of a minor graphical imperfection in the way it was currently rendered -- I'm not sure I understand that correctly.

But the Guidelines suggest that I should just accept that, which I'll do.  So I'm trying to figure out what my options are, and this seems to be the most logical place for me to ask about that.  I believe my comment is relevant and useful, and that this is where the interested parties are connected.  If there's a better forum for me to ask, please kindly direct me there, and I'll kindly go there.

Here's my idea.  Chrome (like every browser I've used on Linux) has also always supported `about:`, and it does so by redirecting to `chrome://version`.  Which makes me wonder if Firefox supporting it by redirecting to `about:support` would be an acceptable compromise / win-win solution.  The first section of that page shows me the information I care about, so I'd be perfectly satisfied with that.  If I'm correct in my understanding that this was removed simply because of issues with the rendering of the page that existed at `about:`, and not due to any explicit goal to not support having useful information available at `about:`, then this seems like an easily supported change that would be a win-win from all perspectives.  Historical consistency, keeping grumpy old power users like me happy, consistency with other browsers, and virtually non-existent maintenance concerns since the old `about:` page stays gone.

Is this an idea that people here would support?  Is there something I could do to help make it happen?  (Submit a patch?)  Is there somewhere else I should raise this idea instead?  Thanks!
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