216190 - global mimeTypes.rdf file

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: File Handling, defect)

Description

[Janyne Kizer]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.3) Gecko/20030312
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.3) Gecko/20030312

Need a global mimeTypes.rdf file for use with multiuser installation of Mozilla.
 In the past this was possible with the mime.Types and mailcap files but this
does not seem to be a possibility with the mimeTypes.rdf format.  I can
propogate the file to new users via the /usr/lib/mozilla-1.4/defaults/profile
directory but I would like to just point to a global file maintained by the
system administrator.  This affects both the Mail and Browser components.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:

Comment 1

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

Why is this plugins ?
A Helper App is no plugin -> File Handling

Comment 2

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

>In the past this was possible with the mime.Types and mailcap files
Mozilla supports mailcap, what's Your problem with that ?

Comment 3

[Janyne Kizer]

It doesn't appear to work globally though.  I have tried using the prefs.js for
this and not only does the Helper App not pick up the mailcap/mime.types info,
but it is also removed from the users's prefs.js file.  

user_pref("helpers.global_mailcap_file", "/etc/mailcap");
user_pref("helpers.global_mime_types_file", "/etc/mime.types");

I have no preference for the name/format of the file that is used for this.

Comment 4

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

a) Mozilla will not display the mailcap file in edit\preferences\helper apps
(known bug)

b) you can't use Mozilla to write to this file (die to a) but this will not
change if a) is fixed)

This prefs should work :
You can customize the MIME information used by Mozilla. A mime.types file maps
the MIME types to file extensions, while the mailcap file specifies the helper
applications to launch for a given MIME type. Add these lines:
user_pref("helpers.global_mailcap_file", "X:\\HOME\\mailcap");
user_pref("helpers.global_mime_types_file", "X:\\HOME\\mime.types");
user_pref("helpers.private_mailcap_file", "X:\\HOME\\.mailcap");
user_pref("helpers.private_mime_types_file", "X:\\HOME\\.mime.types");

(the paths are from OS/2)

Comment 5

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

So what functionality are you really seeking?  If you want to preconfigure some 
helper apps for users, then just setting them in /etc/mailcap will work, as 
Matti says -- they won't show up in the prefs panel, but trying to open a file 
of the relevant type will do the right thing...

Are you looking for something slightly different?

Comment 6

[Janyne Kizer]

What you describe is what I am looking for.  I would like to specify a series of
helper apps apps for users.  The problem is that when I edit the prefs.js file,
the association isn't there.  For example, PDF is listed in my global
mailcap/mime.types.  When I edit prefs.js to use the global files, Mozilla 1.4
says that it doens't know what to do with a PDF file.  After exiting Mozilla
1.4, I can then go to the prefs.js file and see that the
helpers.global_mailcap_file and helpers.global_mime_types_file entries have both
been removed.  Yes, it is disconcerting to have nothing listed in the edit ->
preferences -> helper apps section but in the end if it works, that is fine. 
The problem is that specifying the global files via the prefs.js file is not
working for me either.

user_pref("helpers.global_mailcap_file", "/etc/mailcap");
   user_pref("helpers.global_mime_types_file", "/etc/mime.types");

   user_pref("helpers.global_mailcap_file", "/etc/mailcap");
   user_pref("helpers.global_mime_types_file", "/etc/mime.types");

Comment 7

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Is it saying that it doesn't know and nothing else?  Or is it saying that but 
having the desired helper app listed in the dialog?  If the former, please run:

env NSPR_LOG_MODULES=HelperAppService:5 NSPR_LOG_FILE=/home/whatever/log.txt 
mozilla

load the single url that's causing the problem (say a PDF) once, then quit 
Mozilla.

Then attach the log to this bug, please.

Comment 8

[Janyne Kizer]

I have run into some additional problems that I have been unable to resolve with
/etc/mailcap and /etc/mime.types.  The issue relates to the
application/octet-stream Content-Type.  Since Mozilla handles this in a
different way that the previous version of Netscape that we used, we have
noticed an extraordinary number of attachments that come in with the
Content-Type.  Since we cannot go out and "fix" every sending client, this has
to be handled on the receiving client end.  I noticed that there is some
documentation on this on the Mozilla site at
http://www.mozilla.org/docs/end-user/helper-applications.html.  Unfortunately,
it looks like this may have to be handled for every single user.  This is pretty
ugly for a few reasons.  Firstly, that's 1200 copies of one file.  Secondly, if
I replace the user's mimeTypes.rdf file with my copy, that will blow away any
preferences that they have set themselves.  A global mimeType.rdf would
certainly help in this situation.

Comment 9

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

As would fixing the mailnews bug involved (which is that mailnews doesn't just
sniff the type when an attachment is application/octet-stream, which is what it
_should_ do).

Comment 10

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

seems like a valid request, and I can't find a duplicate -> confirming

bz: comment 5 is unix/os2-only

Comment 11

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

biesi, this is filed as a Linux bug.  Most Windows installations that would have
the capability to set up global mimeTypes files off a shared partition of some
sort can just as easily push out registry settings (and tend to have computers
locked down enough that they can do that, really).

Comment 12

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

hmmm. good point - didn't think of that... but that does not allow
preconfiguring to always open a specific mime type... though I don't know if we
want to allow that