221257 - Suggest a way to bypass profilemanager

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Documentation Graveyard :: Help Viewer, enhancement)

Description

[timeless]

Managing Profiles

...

After you create one or more additional profiles, you will be asked which you
want to use each time you launch the browser.

In this section:

Creating a New Profile

Deleting or Renaming a Profile

>Skipping the Profile Manager<

Text:
You can start Mozilla with a specific profile by adding -P profilename to the
command you use to run mozilla.

For example (on windows) you could
1. copy the shortcut to mozilla on your desktop by <control>-dragging it to a
new place on the desktop
2. <alt>-double-click it to open shortcut properties
3. move the cursor to the end of the Target field by pressing <end>
4. type: <space><hyphen>P<space>"{your profile name}"
                                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ this needs to be written so
that people don't copy the string as written in this document.
5. click [OK]
6. Then rename the shortcut to something like "profilename's mozilla".
You can repeat this for each profile.

[Explaining how to do this on linux isn't practical. The macintosh way is really
unintuitive so while it could be explained, and it might be worth explaining, no
macintosh user would like it.]

Comment 1

[R.J. Keller]

Bug confirmed.

-> Doc: User

Comment 2

[Daniel Wang]

I think it's better to update http://www.mozilla.org/docs/command-line-args.html
and link to it from Help. Help is only for helping users w/ performing specific
tasks with the UI. Anything that has to be done outside of Mozilla should be put
somewhere else.

I don't use Linux or Mac. Timeless, do you have information on how to use
command lines in these OSes?

Comment 3

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

on linux, mozilla's commandline syntax is almost the same as windows, 2 differences:

/foo is not accepted, instead --foo is allowed
windows-specific options like -console are not supported

Comment 4

[R.J. Keller]

Daniel, you do something like this:

./mozilla -profileManager

Comment 5

[timeless]

The issue w/ linux and mac is where to stick it, not what to stick
into it.
for linux you need instructions for at least gnome and kde,
possibly also for some other window managers or a few unix shells.

for macos classic, create a file:
type: TEXT
creator: MOZZ
containing:
ARGS: -P foo
(eof)

I believe that file should work on OSX too.
on osx one could also write a shell script, but the people reading
this document wouldn't be interested in that. (And if they know what
a shell script is, they can read the unix instructions.)

Comment 6

[timeless]

minor correction, there shouldn't be spaces after the colons in the mac file...

Comment 7

[Daniel Wang]

http://www.mozilla.org/docs/command-line-args.html updated

Comment 8

[Damian Hickey]

From the docs:

-------
-P "profile_name"

Bypass Profile Manager and launch application with the profile named profile_name. Useful for dealing with multiple profiles. Note profile_name is case sensitive.

-------


So why is this decade old bug not closed?

Comment 9

[Eric Shepherd [:sheppy]]

Probably because whoever fixed it didn't mark it so. :)