234324 - allow clicked URL to load in background

Status: RESOLVED EXPIRED

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Message Display, enhancement)

Description

[Tobias Herp]

User-Agent:       
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; de-AT; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040113

I currently have a dial-up connection only (time costs money); when reading a
newsletter mail containing a lot of URLs, I use to click on the links I'm
interested in. When ready, I terminate the connection and go through the
messages using the Backspace button.

Currently, each click on a link causes the browser window to pop to the
foreground; using the right mouse button, I can choose a new browser window or a
new tab, but not to suppress the focus change.

I'd like to suggest a "load in background" popup menu entry. It would be nice to
have an easy way to switch the default (left mouse button) behaviour, but I
reckon this would be another issue.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open a newsletter mail which contains a lot of URLs
2. click on a link (left or right mouse button)
Actual Results:  
There is no possibility to cause the URL load in background

Expected Results:  
There should be an option to load the link in background, when clicked using the
right mouse button.

Comment 1

[R.K.Aa.]

dup of bug 67571
See also bug 56690 and bug 105977

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 67571 ***

Comment 2

[Tobias Herp]

(In reply to comment #1)
> dup of bug 67571
> See also bug 56690 ...

both refer to opening in a new window. That's _not_ my point.  Note that the
product is MailNews.  The URL might very well load in the active tab of the
already existing top browser window.

> ... and bug 105977

This, too, deals with new windows, and with a general pref.  I'm talking about a
per-click decision.

Comment 3

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

For what it's worth, there is a partial solution already: in Preferences | 
Navigator | Tabbed Browsing, set 

  Tab display
    [x] Open tabs in the background
  Open Tabs Instead of Windows for
    [x] Middle-click, Ctrl-click...

Then a link in mail can be left-clicked to open/raise the browser immediately 
(loading the page in the current tab) or middle-clicked to leave the browser in 
the background (loading the page in a new tab).  Not perfect control, but it's 
part way there.


It is true that the old bugs cited refer to "opening in a new window" -- that's 
because tabs weren't implemented (maybe still unthought of) when those bugs were 
filed.  The 'WontFix' resolution of bug 67571 is in response to the idea of 
adding a context menu item on the link; and that *is* what Reporter suggested.  
I think R.K.Aa was correct in making the dupe, and I suggest that Reporter 
reinstate that resolution.



It makes no difference whether the link is clicked in MailNews or not; the same 
preferences are going to be used whether the link is clicked within mail or 
within the browser.  The only thing a link in the MailNews window won't do just 
like the browser is load the page inside the mail window.

Also note that for people who are using a browser other than Mozilla, there is 
no standard way to tell that browser which window/tab to use nor how to load in 
fore/background.  (Of course, right now, Mail/News users are stuck opening links 
in the Mozilla browser, but T-bird users are not, and someday bug 108455 will be 
addressed.)

Comment 4

[Tobias Herp]

Mike, thanks for your suggestion;  but my intention was to *not* get a tab for
each link.  I would need to close every single tab using the mouse, which is not
very convenient.

I don't want *any* new thing, be it tab or window;  I just want to use the
browser window mozilla uses anyway, just without handing over the focus.  And
I'm perfectly happy with Mozilla displaying the linked URL, so bug 108455
doesn't apply, either.

Unless someone digs out another bug which *really* matches, this is *no* duplicate.

Comment 5

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
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Comment 6

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This bug has been automatically resolved after a period of inactivity (see above
comment). If anyone thinks this is incorrect, they should feel free to reopen it.