190947 - put a disclaimer with documentation/help link into view selection source that this is not the actual source

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Core Graveyard :: View Source, enhancement)

Description

[Ralf Hauser]

... but the DOM's view of what should be rendered

"untidy" background info why I suggest this as 4) in
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=190926#c2

Comment 1

[timeless]

why should we bother? netscape4's source wasn't the always the real source
either. people who use view source should know that it isn't. and anyone who
uses it for a while would get annoyed by static text to that effect

Comment 2

[Ralf Hauser]

Who cares about n4 now ? Just because the past was full of bad software why
should the future continue to be so?
How do you think people should know?

Agreed, just static text is probably too simple - additionally, there should be
the warning and next to it a button that brings you to the true "view source".
Similar to the "Don't show this message again..." checkbox in the message for
https beginners, experts, wizards and other knowItAlls wouln't have to be
annoyed again and again if they don't if they don't wish to.

Comment 3

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

I'm tempted to mark this "wontfix", but it's rbs' call. 

The functionality is more targeted at XML pages anyway, on which there are no
such issues.

Comment 4

[Doron Rosenberg (IBM)]

I'd vote for wontfix.

Comment 5

[Ralf Hauser]

Suggestion of another variant for the user interface:
In the view menu of the view-source window have another "tickable" entry next to
"Syntax Highlighting".

Why is this "functionality [..] more targeted at XML pages anyway"? It is
available under HTML and I contend this still the overwhelmingly predominant use
of Mozilla these days.

Some considerations on the Process/Governance of handling this bug:
==================================================================
For somebody who just wasted a lot of time trying to catch a HTML bug and who
was mislead by the "View Selection Source", it is strange to see how Mozilla
insiders are against a suggestion, but wouldn't give an intelligible reason why
and use a quite arrogant style for this ("why bother...", etc.). One feels
especially helpless if people who certainly are very knowledgeable, but who have
no visible relationship to a particular component (*) and who claim to be "on
vacation" and unavailable for constructive reviews are about to close one's RFE
where I am sure a lot of other people suffered throught the same and fixing it
appears to be so easy.
Isn't there a due time period an RFE needs to remain open in order to be found
in queries and possibly collect votes by others? 
Is there a recommended way to appeal against such decisions that feel "slobby"?
Or should I post to a newsgroup to rally for support?

Anyway, it is comforting to now also read from Doron who is at least a person
mentioned in http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/describecomponents.cgi?product=Browser
under the "ViewSource" component.

Anyway, as this idea apparently soon will only be of historic interest in some
archive of "resolved" bugs, I am adding a link to it in
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=185565 - a bug that I will use as
tracker for RFEs of mine which I hope eventually will get attention again.

-----
(*) I find Boris in http://www.mozilla.org/owners.html as a Style responsible,
but this isn't a style thing here... "timeless@myrealbox" is not found in
http://www.mozilla.org/quality/browser/navigator-who2bug.html nor in
http://www.mozilla.org/search.html 

Comment 6

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

> Why is this "functionality [..] more targeted at XML pages anyway"? 

Ralf, you should look up the bug that rbs checked in "view selection source" 
under... the primary target audience was MathML authors.

I understand the confusion about what my relationship to viewsource is.  Please 
have a look at http://bonsai.mozilla.org/cvslog.cgi?
file=mozilla/htmlparser/src/nsViewSourceHTML.cpp revisions 1.95, 1.97, 1.98, 
1.120, 1.121, 1.129 (I leave out the non-substantive changes I've made to this 
file).  

I said I'm tempted to mark it wontfix because that's what rbs has done with 
similar bugs on the topic of "view selection source" (if you look at that same 
cvs log you will see that "view selection source" was entirely created by rbs). 
At the same time, I feel that this idea has more merit than the suggestions 
he's marked wontfix (renaming the context menu item to something very long that 
no one could understand and such garbage).  If we want to somehow indicate 
that "selection source" is pretty much unrelated to any actual text that came 
over the wire, your suggestion is likely our best option.  Which is why I cced 
rbs instead of resolving the bug immediately.  I (and doron, presumably, since 
this bug is still open) would like to know his opinion, since this is his code 
we're talking about.

> Isn't there a due time period an RFE needs to remain open 

No.  ;)  It is entirely at the module owner's discretion... Who the module 
owner is for this module is hard to tell; no one wants to own it.

> Is there a recommended way to appeal against such decisions that
> feel "slobby"?

e-mailing [e-mail].  

Comment 7

[Ralf Hauser]

Boris, thanks for the clarification, I guess you refer to rbs' comment
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=122524#c46
r.

Comment 8

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Ralf, that was part of the original discussion about what to name the context 
menu item, yes... (there have been bugs filed since then suggesting various 
pretty ludicrous changes to that text)

Comment 9

[rbs]

Since it is a UI bug, I am tempted to mark it as wontfix. However, the
increasing number of dups about this issue seems to suggest that it is not as
immediate as it could possibly be. So let's examine the options:

1/ do nothing... the ever present option.
2/ rephrase the text of the context menu item: has been wontfix for a while.
3/ static disclaimer text: annoying & lost screen estate on an already small
popup window.
4/ alert box: I don't like this very much, especially on something not critical
such as this.
5/ title? This hasn't been discussed before, but it could well be a reasonnable
trade-off. If the title says "WYSIWYG Source - Mozilla", that could be enough to
reminds the user that it isn't quite the original source. I know that people
didn't like "WYSIWYG" very much, so view it as an example, other suggestions are
welcome.

Comment 10

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

How about "Generated" rather than "WYSIWIG"?  Too abstruse?

Comment 11

[rbs]

Yeah, it doesn't quite catch on.

Comment 12

[rbs]

*** Bug 193060 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 13

[rbs]

Attachment: patch to show the title as "DOM Source - Mozilla"

What do yo make of "DOM Source - Mozilla"? Should be enough to remind people
what it is all about, and it is understandable by developers who are likely
going to use the feature in the first place.

Notes:
1) since the window uses |contenttitlesetting="false"|, I had to set the fully
qualified title because XUL does compose the fully qualified title in that
case.
2) I removed an unused entited in navigator.dtd that was supposedly meant for
viewsource. In fact, what viewsource needs is in viewSource.dtd.

Comment 14

[rbs]

s/XUL does compose/XUL doesn't compose/

Comment 15

[Doron Rosenberg (IBM)]

Comment on attachment 117677 [details] [diff] [review]
patch to show the title as "DOM Source - Mozilla"

r=doron

Comment 16

[rbs]

-> taking and targetting 1.4, to cut those noisy dups than distract from other
things.

Comment 17

[rbs]

Comment on attachment 117677 [details] [diff] [review]
patch to show the title as "DOM Source - Mozilla"

trying alecf since bz is away.

Comment 18

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Comment on attachment 117677 [details] [diff] [review]
patch to show the title as "DOM Source - Mozilla"

Looks fine.  ;)

Comment 19

[rbs]

Comment on attachment 117677 [details] [diff] [review]
patch to show the title as "DOM Source - Mozilla"

Seeking a=1.4a from drivers. Risk-free patch to put an explanatory title on the
View Selection Source window to remdind users that the source from the DOM.
This is simply aimed at clearing a misunderstanding that has unfortunately been
the source of several noisy dups.

Comment 20

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

Comment on attachment 117677 [details] [diff] [review]
patch to show the title as "DOM Source - Mozilla"

please land this change first thing in 1.4beta. thanks.

Comment 21

[rbs]

checked in.

Comment 22

[:Hb]

The hint is still not impressive enough, bug 164906 was reopened for this.