197579 - Option to open file of unknown content-type as plain text in browser window

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 57342

(Core Graveyard :: File Handling, enhancement)

Description

[David Dorward]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.3b) Gecko/20030225
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.3b) Gecko/20030225

When visiting a URL referencing a file with an unknown content-type,
Mozilla prompts the user to open it with an application or save it to
disk.

I would find it useful to have a third option, "Open as text", which
would open the file as plain text and display it in the normal browser
window.

This would be useful for users who want to view, for example, source
code in the browser before deciding to save it, ignore it, or copy and
paste bits of it.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Visit URL with unknown content type

Actual Results:  
Prompted to open in an application or save

Expected Results:  
Prompting top open in an application, open as text in browser, or save

Comment 1

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

It doesn't make sense for 99% of all mime-types.
It would make sende for text/* but we have already a bug for that.

Assign it to text-Editor ?

Comment 2

[timeless]

you can already by doing one of the following things:
data:text/html,<a href='view-source:http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/code/money.pm'>a
(click a)
view-source:http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/code/money.pm
(unfortunately this opens in a new window - you're supposed to be able to drag
edited content from the urlbar into the content area which would avoid that, but
you can't atm)

that said, we already have bugs for this.

Comment 3

[David Dorward]

It might not make sense for a lot of mime types, but it is still useful for some
of them.

A link with view-source: isn't a good alternative, it requires active
participation of the person authoring the page.

I'm nore sure what the second option suggested by timeless actually is.

I looked for duplicates, but couldn't find any. Numbers please!

Comment 4

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 57342 ***

Comment 5

[timeless]

vrfy dupe