1432702 - Non-intuitive implementation of <iframe src="...pdf">

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Core :: Layout: Images, Video, and HTML Frames, defect, P3)

Description

[James Cobban]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:57.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/57.0
Build ID: 20180104101725

Steps to reproduce:

<iframe src="/Articles/SpreadsheetsInGenealogy.pdf" type="application/pdf"
	class="white" width="100%" height="600px">
  &lt;iframe&gt; not supported by this browser.  
  <a href="/Articles/SpreadsheetsInGenealogy.pdf">download</a>
</iframe>

see https://www.jamescobban.net/displayPage.php?template=Articles/SpreadsheetsInGenealogy for demonstration



Actual results:

The browser displayed an empty iframe and downloaded the specified file to my Downloads directory.  The download rather than Preview option was set in the browser.


Expected results:

Because the PDF document was being requested from an iframe rather than an <a> I feel that the option to download should have been ignored as non-intuitive.  The basic issue is that I need my site to work for all customers regardless of what options they have set in their individual browsers,

Comment 1

[Jet Villegas (inactive)]

[ Triage 2017/02/20: P3 ]

Comment 2

[Vincent Lefevre]

This also occurs with the "Always Ask" option, and Firefox 132.0.2 is still affected. This happens on any article page of https://inria.hal.science/ when a PDF is available (i.e. in most cases), which is very annoying because a dialogue box appears each time I open such a page.

I think that 2 options should be offered (this might already be covered in another bug):

1. Always make the document appear in the iframe.
2. Leave the iframe blank (the goal is to avoid downloading big files for the preview, which is important when the network connection is bad or when one has limitations for mobile data) or with just a button in it so that the user can download the contents only when requested.

BTW, in the "Always Ask" dialogue, even if one chooses to open the PDF document in Firefox, the PDF is displayed in a new tab rather than the iframe. Anyway, if the main bug is fixed (it should really be), this case will no longer occur.