170086 - Helper application settings ignored

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Core Graveyard :: File Handling, defect)

Description

[Tristan Miller]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.1) Gecko/20020826
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.1) Gecko/20020826

When a new helper application is set via the preferences menu, Mozilla does not
use the specified helper application to open files of that type.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Edit->Preferences->Navigator->Helper Applications
2. [optional: use Reset button]
3. New Type
4. Description of type: Postscript File
   File extension: .ps
   MIME type: application/postscript
   Application to use: /usr/bin/kghostview
5. OK
6. OK
7. [optional: restart browser]
8. Visit some site which links to a Postscript file -- e.g.,
http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~psy/pubs.html -- and click on one of the "[.ps]" links.

Actual Results:  
Mozilla opens a "Enter name of file to save to" window.

Expected Results:  
Should have downloaded the link to a temp file and then opened with
/usr/bin/kghostview

Comment 1

[Tristan Miller]

Bug also occurs with Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.2a) Gecko/20020910

Comment 2

[Tristan Miller]

Attachment: The mimeTypes.rdf file used for the test case.

Comment 3

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Which exact dialog do you get?  The one that asks whether to save or open?  Or
the one that is a filepicker?

Comment 4

[Tristan Miller]

I get a filepicker dialog, as indicated above.

Comment 5

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Could you attach your prefs.js file, please?

Comment 6

[Tristan Miller]

Attachment: prefs.js file *after* the bug is observed

Note that the prefs.js file contains the line
user_pref("browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk",
"application%2Fpostscript");
However, I did *not* tell Mozilla that I always wanted to save Postscript files
to disk.

Here's another way of producing this bug:
1. Edit->Preferences->Navigator->Helper Applications
2. Click "Reset", and also remove from the "File types" frame all references to
Postscript files.
3. Click OK.
(At this point, examining the prefs.js file reveals no mention of what to do
when an application/postscript is encountered.)
4. Go to a web page which links to a Postscript file and click on the link.
5. Up pops a dialog "Downloading filename.ps" which asks, "What should Mozilla
do with this file?"
6. Click Choose.
7. Enter /usr/bin/kghostview (or your PS viewer of choice)
8. Click Open.	(BTW, this button is misleading -- should be renamed.)
9. Uncheck "Always ask before opening this type of file"
10. Click OK.
11. File opens in KGhostview as expected.
12. Now click on some other Postscript file on the page.
13. Up pops an "Enter name of file to save to" dialog.	Wrong dialog -- we just
specified we wanted Mozilla to always open this kind of file, not save it!
14. Inspection of prefs.js after this point reveals the above-noted, incorrect
user_pref line.

Comment 7

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Tristan, the steps you list in comment 6 demonstrate bug 93173.   Are the steps
in comment 0 complete?  They don't mention what you did with the "always ask"
checkbox, if anything....  (that could matter here).

Comment 8

[Tristan Miller]

Boris, there is no "Always ask" option in the Helper Applications preferences
menu.  Using the procedure described in comment 0, the user is never asked what
he wants to do with the file; Mozilla always tries to save it.

Comment 9

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Tristan, you're right.  The option is there in the "edit" dialog but not the
"new" dialog...

The reason I asked for clarification is that I just tried following the steps in
comment 0 (brand-new profile, 2002-08-21-04 Linux nightly build) and I could not
reproduce the problem.  :(

Comment 10

[Tristan Miller]

Hmm.. you're right; I'm not able to reproduce it either now.  Either this
problem was influenced by previous actions, it was a transient problem, or I
misremembered the steps to reproduce in Comment 0.  Perhaps this was just bug
93173 observed under slightly different conditions.

Comment 11

[Kenneth Herron]

Using solaris nightly 2002121122. I'm not able to reproduce this either; all of
the dialogs appear to work as designed. Resolving per comment #11.