1772488 - Address book contact website input requires http:// which users might not realize

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Address Book, defect)

Description

[Ares]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:101.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/101.0

Steps to reproduce:

I just installed the 102 Beta and tried entering the website info for my first contact. When trying to enter the website address, the "human" way - entering just "starcic.hr" instead of the full URL WITH protocol "https://starcic.hr", (works with omitting the default "www." subdomain - it is impossible to save it.

Actual results:

I couldn't save the contact unless I added the protocol prefix for the contact detail.

Expected results:

As regular users usually don't enter web addresses starting with the protocol prefix (ie.: https://google.com), but instead simply "google.com" this should be managed automatically in a place like the address book.

Comment 1

[Ares]

Attachment: Bad input

Comment 2

[Ares]

Attachment: Good input

Comment 3

[Ares]

I should also add that the field accepts the format "https:domain.com" (omitting the two forward slashes) but then the website section in the contact preview isn't shown...

Comment 4

[Christian Riechers]

I can confirm the behavior described above for a local address book.
Adding a http:// prefix by default to the domain name does not sound like a good idea to me though, as most web sites use https these days.

Unfortunately there seems to be more to this, and it's worse.
I do use a CardDAV address book for Google Contacts. When attempting to create a new contact with a website field (e.g. thunderbird.net) it fails miserably.

• adding just thunderbird.net - contact cannot be saved
• adding http://thunderbird.net - contact can be saved, but is not shown afterwards. It does sync to the server though.
• editing to https://thunderbird.net - contact cannot be saved
• editing the synced contact on the server to https://thunderbird.net. After syncing again, the TB address book still doesn't show the website information. When trying to edit the contact locally the website field shows a crippled URL - see screenshot.

Comment 5

[Christian Riechers]

Attachment: edit_contact_with_website_field.png

Comment 6

[Andreas]

See also: Bug 1772677

Comment 7

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Attachment: Bug 1772488 - Auto add https:// when editing address book website without scheme. r=nicolai

Comment 8

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

(In reply to Christian Riechers from comment #4)

Adding a http:// prefix by default to the domain name does not sound like a good idea to me though, as most web sites use https these days.

The patch I submitted will auto-add https:// on input, if there is no http:// or https://. It's done during input, so if it actually isn't https, the user has a chance to correct it at that point.

Comment 9

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/1e77455940c4
Auto add https:// when editing address book website without scheme. r=nicolai

Comment 10

[Geoff Lankow (:darktrojan)]

Comment on attachment 9279817 [details]
Bug 1772488 - Auto add https:// when editing address book website without scheme. r=nicolai

[Approval Request Comment]
Regression caused by (bug #):
User impact if declined: user can type in a URL without a scheme and it won't be accepted
Testing completed (on c-c, etc.): landed a week ago
Risk to taking this patch (and alternatives if risky): no

Comment 11

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Comment on attachment 9279817 [details]
Bug 1772488 - Auto add https:// when editing address book website without scheme. r=nicolai

[Triage Comment]
Approved for beta

Comment 12

[Rob Lemley [:rjl]]

Thunderbird 102.0beta6:
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/comm-beta/rev/7a26320c3921

Comment 13

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Interesting, https:// suddenly gets added as we type.

As a heads up, I would suspect that this will not solve the problem of legacy web sites on the card which do not have a domain. When editing such legacy cards, the wrong web site entry will probably (and unexpectedly) block saving the card.

Comment 14

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

In such cases, the data was incorrect (per spec). While a minor nuisance, I think that's something we can live with.
We, and other users of that data, need to be able to trust it's decent, for actually using it for anything.

Comment 15

[Ares]

Hi, I just tested the fix and it SEEMED to work but there is a case when it breaks again.

1. If you try and edit the website URL (e.g. you have "https://example.com" in the field) by deleting everything and putting just "example.org" it fails as before (so there is no check like when entered for the first time).

2. I noticed if you try to just edit the protocol part "https://" by selecting only that part - It won't allow it, it moves the cursor after the last char (after the .com) which I thought - odd, but could be useful if it's smart enough ;) Alas... I discovered the bug above when i simply tried to edit my second URL (labeled "Work") and saw that it doesn't auto-add the protocol prefix.
   Le sigh...

Cheers,

Comment 16

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Re #1, I don't see that.
Re #2, yes, though there is very little reason for anyone to do that :)