259741 - Very bad error message style: Alert "XXX is not a registered protocol"

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: File Handling, defect)

Description

[Andreas Mohr]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040808 Firefox/0.9.3
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040808 Firefox/0.9.3

This very common error (can be invoked by simply going to
"mailto:[e-mail]") is a prime example of how error messages should
NOT be done.
It doesn't explain squat:
- what a "protocol" is (or at least which kind of "protocol" exactly)
- what the user should do to prevent this "deadlock" situation
- detailed steps how the user is supposed to resolve this problem
- it's very non-informative in general

If Mozilla intends to attract a large share of users, then this and possibly
similarly broken parts should be fixed ASAP.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Enter in URL bar: "mailto:[e-mail]"
2. Hit Return
Actual Results:  
Alert "mailto is not a registered protocol" message box

Expected Results:  
Soemthing like:

Alert "'mailto' is an internet protocol which Firefox/Mozilla/... doesn't
recognize, because it doesn't know of any helper program which can understand
this protocol. Please [...]"

[...] could be something like (in preferred order):
a) go to http://XXX.mozilla.org for detailed help on this issue.
b) do an Internet search for helper programs able to understand protocol XXXX
c) go to Preferences (some page to set this up) to do XXX

This could be improved by adding more detailed information for unregistered
protocols that Firefox knows about, such as mailto: (--> Thunderbird).
Even providing a direct download link for possible protocol handlers would be
conceivable (the best solution, perhaps??).

Such additional code will bloat the browser, though, so directing the user to a
web page is probably preferred.

Assigning "major" to it, since such an unfinished raw error message may often
leave a VERY bad taste for hesitating new IE converts.
See also
http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2004-09-15-029-26-OS-DT-SW-0000
for an example of a very grumpy user annoyed by this error message
(which prompted me to write this bug!)

Should I submit a patch to Mozilla to improve this message temporarily?
Should be quite easy to find...
But OTOH Mozilla developers probably know best how to handle this difficult
(from a user handling point of view) issue.

Thanks,

Andreas Mohr, OSS developer

Comment 1

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

sure, let's make the text long enough that nobody is going to read it...

Comment 2

[Andreas Mohr]

So you'd think with such a short, unhelpful message the users will be much
better off?
Let me tell you: no, no and again, no! ;)

They may simply click away that message, but realizing that they still don't
know what to do some people might actually be clever enough to try it again and
read the error message properly this time (which will then immediately help them
if it's simply worded helpfully enough).
And if some other people are not... well, at least we then have tried thoroughly
to tell them what's wrong, which cannot be said at all of the current message.

Also, you could always add a bold title (provided the Alert box is able to
implement that) that quickly tells the main point if you think a long message
text is a problem:
"Mozilla doesn't know how to handle this internet protocol"
(while writing the main text part in a slightly smaller size)

Note that my example is just one of many possible message texts, including many
possibly smaller texts.

Again, the current error message is a dead-end for many (newbie-ish) people,
since it doesn't provide any useful ways to get required software installed (a
pretty direct link to additional software installation would probably be the
best way to do it, although one would have to keep security in mind).
Apart from newbies, many very experienced users probably will be similarly put
off by such an unhelpful error message (they'll certainly know what to do, but
they will simply not care any more).

Comment 3

[Hixie (not reading bugmail)]

The correct answer is to not use a dialog at all, but to use a page, just like 
all network error messages should.

Mind you, IE currently has at least three different ways of handling this 
error, so I don't think we need to worry about this too much. (Try 'aaaa:', 
'foo:', and 'bobobo:' and explain to me the difference between the three.)

Comment 4

[Andreas Mohr]

Haha, I'm laughing my head off right now!
No wonder IE is such a horrible security nightmare, given this tangled mess.
Needless to say I cannot explain the difference, and I wouldn't even want to
try, since I'm no web developer (especially why it wants to do a WAIS lookup for
aaaa: is completely beyond me).

Indeed, simply having special error pages for such cases sounds like a much
better way to do it. These could explain rather verbosely what the different
options for such a missing protocol handler are. Would be very nice to see this
done in the near future. Or should I use some of my precious spare time (doing
too many OSS projects) to create some error pages myself?

Comment 5

[WD]

Go to about:config
enter the new boolean value called:  browser.xul.error_pages.enabled
set it to true

Comment 6

[Hixie (not reading bugmail)]

Specifically, see bug 28586 and its dependencies. Your help would be VERY
welcome. As soon as all the bug's dependencies are fixed (those labelled as "Bug
28586 depends on:"), then we can turn it on by default.

Comment 7

[timeless]

callto: is not exactly an internet protocol, file: is not an internet protocol,
data: is not really an internet protocol. hcp is not an internet protocol.
outlook is not an internet protocol. shell is not an internet protocol. stssync
is not an internet protocol.