1855073 - supernova: make hyperlinks in compose window clickable

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 695142

(Thunderbird :: Message Compose Window, enhancement)

Description

[P. Cramond]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/117.0

Steps to reproduce:

This is a request as you are doing a lot of work on Supernova anyway. Please make it possible for users to add a hyperlink in the Compose Window and (once the link is entered) allow the user to click on the link in the Compose Window and have that link open in the system's default web browser.

As things stand it is just plain tedious to add a link and then save the message as a Draft, then close the Compose Window, then go to drafts and read the draft in which the user can then test link by clicking on it. Please do away with all that nonsense and make links in the Compose Window clickable for testing purposes.

Comment 1

[Anje]

I prefer the current status as no clickable link at the compose point in Write because it's so easy to edit in non clickable form.
However, if you really need to test then it is easy to copy and paste the text into a browser to check the actual link is correct. So from a 'checking you got the link correct' point of view you do not have to click on it.

Set up Drafts auto saving as you type then you do not have to manually save as a draft.
You do not have to close the Compose window either.

Comment 2

[Francesco]

This is a dupe of bug 695142 where they asked for an entry in the context menu.

Comment 3

[P. Cramond]

(In reply to Anje from comment #1)

Oh, save us please from users that demand lesser functionality.

I prefer the current status as no clickable link at the compose point in Write because it's so easy to edit in non clickable form.

I was thinking that the click-ability would be via a key and mouse combination e.g. <Ctrl>+Left-Click – as is implemented in the LibreOffice, OpenOffice and in my Microsoft Office 2003 Word. Doing it that commonly used way preserves being able to edit a link, as is usual and that is a feature worth keeping (I agree). The other way, perhaps easier to implement, would be a right-click Context Menu item to 'Open Link in Web Browser'.

However, if you really need to test then it is easy to copy and paste the text into a browser to check the actual link is correct.

This is fine if you have entered the link in (what shall we call it?) raw form like https://start.duckduckgo.com/ but what happens if you enter different 'text to display for the link' so let's say you have DuckDuck which is what is displayed (with the link embedded) you can no longer manually copy and paste that into a web browser and the paste yields a functioning URL.

Set up Drafts auto saving as you type then you do not have to manually save as a draft.

I already do this, every 5 minutes. So not as convenient as you make out. If I want to check a link immediately, as I would prefer to do, I still have to manually Save as Draft.

You do not have to close the Compose window either.

Excellent point, I never thought of that. Thank you. However it is still hanging on to the problem: links not being clickable in the Compose Window.

Comment 4

[P. Cramond]

(In reply to Francesco from comment #2)

This is a dupe of bug 695142 where they asked for an entry in the context menu.

Just so. That 'bug' was raised 12 years ago and still no progress on it at all. Doing so would add excellent functionality to the Compose Window and, I would suspect, please a great many users.

Comment 5

[P. Cramond]

Well I contacted Jörg over at Betterbird and asked if Betterbird could implement a fix for this. Betterbird then got the fix via the right-click Context Menu route in less than 24 hours.

There's a fair bit of difference there: 12 years and no fix and 24 hours and done and dusted. Something to learn for Thunderbird developers I think.

P.S. It's an excellent addition to the usability of the Compose Window editor. Thunderbird should implement it anyway.