1474179 - Add a "copy raw" item in the popup menu of the address bar when the URL is encoded, and in this case, let the "copy" item copy the decoded URL

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Address Bar, enhancement, P5)

Description

[張俊芝(ZHANG Junzhi)]

I know the user can copy a decoded URL by turning on browser.urlbar.decodeURLsOnCopy in about:config, but I really think it's worth bringing the feature to the UI.

Nowadays, almost all mordern user agents recognize a decoded URL, and users definitely would prefer a readable URL, it's especially useful when someone is developing a website with heavy Unicode URL path names, or even with a Unicode domain name! If the mordern user agent doesn't directly support copying decoded URLs in its UI, then it would be a very terrible thing for promoting websites of such kind(Because almost all visitors will share ugly URLs, which is almost impossible to remember, to other people).

I suggest removing browser.urlbar.decodeURLsOnCopy. We can always let the "copy" menu item copy the decoded URL, what we JUST need to is to add an additional menu item "copy raw" ONLY WHEN the URL is encoded.

Comment 1

[張俊芝(ZHANG Junzhi)]

Attachment: Bug 1474179 - Part 1: Removes browser.urlbar.decodeURLsOnCopy, and always lets "copy" menuitem copy the Unicode URL, if any.

Review commit: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/256586/diff/#index_header
See other reviews: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/256586/

Comment 2

[張俊芝(ZHANG Junzhi)]

Attachment: Bug 1474179 - Part 2: Adds "copy raw" menuitem to the popup menu of the URL bar.

The "copy raw" menuitem is available in the menu only when the URL of the loaded
page is encoded and the entire of the URL is selected. This way, we provide an
option for the user to copy the raw URL instead of the decoded one.

Review commit: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/256588/diff/#index_header
See other reviews: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/256588/

Comment 3

[張俊芝(ZHANG Junzhi)]

Attachment: Bug 1474179 - Part 3: Updates the mochitest for the "copy" menuitem.

Because the behaviour of the menuitem has been changed to always copy a Unicode
URL, if any.

Review commit: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/256590/diff/#index_header
See other reviews: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/256590/

Comment 4

[張俊芝(ZHANG Junzhi)]

Attachment: Bug 1474179 - Part 4: Adds mochitest for the "copy raw" menuitem.

Review commit: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/256592/diff/#index_header
See other reviews: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/256592/

Comment 5

[張俊芝(ZHANG Junzhi)]

The two URLs can be used to test the patch:

https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla基金會
http://nic.网址

After page loads, select the whole URL, and popup the menu, then the "copy raw" menuitem will be visible.

Comment 6

[Valentin Gosu [:valentin] (he/him)]

Comment on attachment 8991665 [details]
Bug 1474179 - Part 1: Removes browser.urlbar.decodeURLsOnCopy, and always lets "copy" menuitem copy the Unicode URL, if any.

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/256586/#review263994

Handing off the review to Marco who is a Firefox peer.

Comment 7

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

off-hand "Copy Raw" will be unclear to most users, I can't imagine how hard it will be to translate it.
We'll need a more understandable label.

Anyway, I think I'm unable to make a call by myself here, so I'll set a couple additional needinfo to collect feedback.

Comment 8

[張俊芝(ZHANG Junzhi)]

I am wondering if we can make things the other way around: let "copy" work as before, and change "copy raw" to "copy readable"

Comment 9

[:Gijs (he/him)]

This seems pretty hairy considering how we already have issues with how decoding the URI produces a different URI when re-encoded...

What do other browsers do?

Comment 10

[張俊芝(ZHANG Junzhi)]

I don't have other browsers installed except Chrome, I can just confirm currently the Chrome just copies the encoded URL.

That said, what other browsers do don't always mean a perfect solution.

What about:

let "copy" work as before, and change "copy raw" to "copy readable", and use a blacklist mechanism: only show "copy readable" when the scheme is what we have considered safe, e.g. "http", "https", "ftp", .... For all other schemes, "copy readable" never shows.

Comment 11

[張俊芝(ZHANG Junzhi)]

typo

s/blacklist/whitelist/

Comment 12

[Drew Willcoxon :adw]

IMO another menu item will probably confuse the average user, so I don't think it should be present by default.  Maybe we could enable it when the user has taken some action, like setting devtools.chrome.enabled or some other new pref specifically for this.  Other than that this seems better left to an extension.  (But I don't know whether webextensions can even modify this menu.  If not, it could be a browser/page action at least.)

Comment 13

[張俊芝(ZHANG Junzhi)]

Personally, I still think when the user copies a URL(like with long Unicode title) and paste to see a quite different-looking URL, that confuses the average user either.

Comment 14

[張俊芝(ZHANG Junzhi)]

Some might even consider the URL a malious address.

Tech guys figure out the method by inputing a character and then deleting the character and then copy the URL when sharing URL, but averages users most unlikely will realize the method, if they try serveral times and still failed to get the pretty URL, they just give up.

Comment 15

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

Comment on attachment 8991665 [details]
Bug 1474179 - Part 1: Removes browser.urlbar.decodeURLsOnCopy, and always lets "copy" menuitem copy the Unicode URL, if any.

It looks like there's no agreement around this, thus I don't feel like to proceed with a formal review.

This doesn't mean there's no problem here, I think we all agree this is not proper atm. browser.urlbar.decodeURLsOnCopy is not an optimal solution, because it's all white or all black, no way to have both behaviors.

Personally I like the idea of allowing WebExtensions to add items to the Address bar context menu, and that could be a good path forward in general.