159051 - Eliminate all XUL use in the content area for embedders

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Core Graveyard :: Embedding: APIs, defect)

Description

[Simon Fraser [no longer active]]

There are several ways of getting XUL in the content area, which also happens
for embedders. Two I can think of now are:

* FTP listings (if the prefs to do HTML are not set)
* about:config

Embedders should *never* get XUL in the content area, unless they explicitly ask
for it. We should default to a strict no-XUL in content everywhere, and force
embedders to call an API if they are willing to handle XUL in content.

Comment 1

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

what about file:/// listings, which use xul (by default in mozilla)?

Comment 2

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

yeah, file://localhost/[path] listings on chimera are horked --er, rather, they
don't display at all.

Comment 3

[Simon Fraser [no longer active]]

Bug 156978 notes the prefs you can switch to eliminate XUL for local file
listings (and the associated problems).

Comment 4

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

to remove the xul dependency, why not make it so about:config is not built (or 
part of the default module) for embeddors?

I think we can do this:
mozilla\netwerk\protocol\about\src\nsAboutRedirector.cpp

static RedirEntry kRedirMap[] = {
    { "credits", "http://www.mozilla.org/credits/", PR_TRUE },
    { "mozilla", "chrome://global/content/mozilla.html", PR_TRUE },
#ifndef NO_XUL_EMBEDDORS
    { "config", "chrome://global/content/config.xul", PR_FALSE },
#endif
    { "plugins", "chrome://global/content/plugins.html", PR_TRUE }
};

or, if we want to allow them to implement their own about:config, we could do 
this:

static RedirEntry kRedirMap[] = {
    { "credits", "http://www.mozilla.org/credits/", PR_TRUE },
    { "mozilla", "chrome://global/content/mozilla.html", PR_TRUE },
#ifdef NO_XUL_EMBEDDORS
    { "config", "chrome://global/content/config.html", PR_TRUE },
#else
    { "config", "chrome://global/content/config.xul", PR_FALSE },
#endif
    { "plugins", "chrome://global/content/plugins.html", PR_TRUE }
};

and then supply a config.html for them.

I think that we should just turn off about:config for embeddors.

Comment 5

[Bradley Baetz (:bbaetz)]

XUL file url stuff is bug 102812. ITs mostly done, but I don't have time to work
on it at the moment - if someone else wants ot pick it up, be my guest.

Comment 6

[Samir Gehani]

adt: nsbeta1-

Comment 7

[Adam Lock]

Does the person in charge of about: redirects want to take this off me?

Comment 8

[Benjamin Smedberg]

Marking a bunch of bugs in the "Embedding: APIs" component INCOMPLETE in preparation to archive that component. If I have done this incorrectly, please reopen the bugs and move them to a more correct component as we don't have "embedding" APIs any more.