236237 - Bad UI: too hard to view simple text files

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 57342

(SeaMonkey :: General, defect)

Description

[Dave Morse]

User-Agent:       
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040121

Often in unix a text file is given a nutty extension, or no extension at all. 
For example "README", "README.1ST", or "nvidia-installer.log".  When mozilla is
asked to browse to these documents, most of the time it reacts badly by giving
the dialog "Opening nvidia-installer.log" is of type unknown/unknown, and
mozilla does not know how to handle this file type. (...)
What should Mozilla do with this file?

[ ] Open it with _____________ [Choose...]
[ ] Save it to disk

[OK] [Cancel]

There should be some way, somehow, (probably another check-box), to get mozilla
to try to render the file natively anyway.  In all the cases I can think of,
this would mean displaying the file's raw ascii bytes.  It already applies this
techniques to "file:" urls it seems an unneeded UI complication for "http:" urls
to behave differently.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. open http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25593
2. click the blue "nvidia-installer.log" link
3. curse softly under your breath as mozilla asks you what to do with the file :)

Actual Results:  
I cursed softly under my breath as mozilla asks me what to do with the file.

Expected Results:  
rendered the URL as if it were a bunch of bytes, exactly as it does if you
laboriously save it to temp directory, then open it again using the
file:///tmp/nvidia-installer.log URL.

Yes, I *am* a mime-type philestine.

Comment 1

[Dave Morse]

> It already applies this techniques to "file:" urls

Sorry, it applies an even better techique: it seems to guess correctly w/o a
dialog box.

Comment 2

[Felix Miata]

Bug day consensus resolution

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

Comment 3

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Verified.  The difference between file:// and http:// is that for http://
handling the file as a type other than what the server specifies is expressly
forbidden....