1594782 - Embedded browser opens links in external browser

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: Untriaged, defect)

Description

[TJ]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:72.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/72.0

Steps to reproduce:

On Xubuntu 19.10 with TB 68.1.2 amd64.

Purely as an example of how the bug manifests (could apply to any extension) I had previously added the extension "Filelink Provider for WebDAV" from

https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/filelink-provider-for-webdav/

Later, via Tools > Add-ons > Extensions I chose to view the extension's expanded info. On the resulting summary page the author's name is hyperlinked.

Following that link opens a new tab with the web-page shown listing that author's extensions. Only 5 are listed and this author has created more therefore there is a "Next>>" button.

Actual results:

When pressed this causes an external web browser to be started to load the 2nd page of results.

Expected results:

The 2nd page should be loaded in the same embedded browser tab.

This is very poor UX.

Maybe there needs to be a filter so that links to addons.thunderbird.net are loaded locally.

Comment 1

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Hmm, we just can't get this right. Before we had a complaint that the add-on details home page should NOT be opened in TB but instead in the external browser, now you want the opposite. We fixed it in bug 1587132.

Comment 2

[TJ]

I think the analysis here is subtly different. In this case TB has already opened the hyperlink in its own tab but it opens links in that tab in the external browser.

In this specific case where the initial target is a list of the author's extensions and the first five are already listed in the TB tab I do not think users (certainly this one) would expect the second page of results to be passed to an external browser.

Maybe the author's A.T.N. page should load in the external browser to begin with?

Comment 3

[Andrei Hajdukewycz [:sancus]]

(In reply to Jorg K (GMT+2) from comment #1)

Hmm, we just can't get this right. Before we had a complaint that the add-on details home page should NOT be opened in TB but instead in the external browser, now you want the opposite. We fixed it in bug 1587132.

The homepage is typically an external domain(ie: not mozilla) and external domains that we don't control should always be opened in an external browser.

The author hyperlink and the homepage are two different things, see: https://i.imgur.com/N50bUGw.png

This bug is about the author link, which goes to their user page on ATN. It's correct that this opens in Thunderbird. Based on this report it seems it's not getting the clickhandler that holds all clicks on *.atn domains inside TB. I have no idea where the code that opens this tab is, but this might be fixable by either finding the tab opening statement, or hacking specialTabs.js to add it after the fact similarly to bug 1482342.

Wasn't Khushil fixing these?

Comment 4

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

I'm confused. The add-on author links is opened in TB, the add-on website link is opened in Firefox, my external browser. So that works as designed in TB 68.2.2.

Comment 5

[Andrei Hajdukewycz [:sancus]]

(In reply to Jorg K (GMT+2) from comment #4)

I'm confused. The add-on author links is opened in TB, the add-on website link is opened in Firefox, my external browser. So that works as designed in TB 68.2.2.

Yeah, but subsequent links clicked on ATN in that tab don't open in TB, that's the bug.

Comment 6

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Reporter, do you see this issue when using version 78?

Comment 7

[TJ]

Unfortunately I'm unable to upgrade beyond TB v68.10. However, the reproducer steps are straight-forward as described in my report.

Pre-requisite: An extension who's author has more than 5 extensions published on a.t.n. (e.g. Geoff Lankow)

1. View the extended info about an extension
2. Follow the Author's hyperlink (opens a.t.n. showing first page listing author's extension and a "Next" button following)

https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/user/geoff-lankow/

3. Follow the "Next" hyperlink results in the second page of results being opened in an external browser

Comment 8

[WaltS48 [:walts48]]

Checking some of my extensions in 78.8.0 on Fedora 33 Workstation.

• Used Tools > Add-ons > Extensions.
• Selected Compact Headers to view its information.
• All the links that I clicked opened in a Thunderbird tab.
• Returned to the Manage Your Extensions tab
• Selected Emoji to view its information.
• Clicked the Homepage link, and it opened in my default Firefox.
• Clicked the 38 Reviews link, and it opened in a Thunderbird tab.
• Returned to the Manage Your Extensions tab.
• Selected ThirdStats to view its information.
• Clicked the reviews tab link, and it opened in a Thunderbird tab.
• Clicked the Release Notes tab for the extension and clicked the "See full release notes with screenshots on GitHub." link, and it opened in Firefox.

So, we want Thunderbird to open those links that open in a browser to open in Thunderbird?

Comment 9

[Andrei Hajdukewycz [:sancus]]

This bug is no longer reproducible for me in 78. The issue was that after clicking a link to ATN via the extension summary, subsequent clicks AFTER that one would open in your external browser.

Links to domains other than ATN(homepage, etc) are always supposed to open in the external browser.

We are no longer doing 68 builds as far as I know, so we can't fix this in versions prior to 78.