26201 - Doubleclicking on an .eml file opens Outlook Express (add *eml to Windows integration preferences)

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 261559

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Message Display, defect)

Description

[Henrik Gemal]

I dont if this is the right place for this bug, but anyways..

If you save a forwarded mail, the mail gets saved as a .eml file. When you the 
double click on this .eml file in your Explorer Outlook Express gets fires up 
with the just saved mail.

Should Mozilla take precedence...?

Comment 1

[Phil Peterson]

Reassign to jefft. I don't think mozilla registers for any file types yet, even
.html. When we do that, it would be nice to take over .eml too.

Comment 2

[selmer (gone)]

Mass moving to M16 to get these off the M15 radar.  Please let me know if this
is really an M15 stopper.

Comment 3

[selmer (gone)]

Not beta2 stopper, marking M18.  Please add beta2 keyword if you disagree.

Comment 4

[Henrik Gemal]

could be a dup of 27187...?

Comment 5

[jefft]

Reassign to mscott. He worked on mime type/application registration stuff.

Comment 6

[jefft]

Forgot to set reassignee ...

Comment 7

[Jesse Ruderman]

Does this still happen?

Comment 8

[Henrik Gemal]

I just checked and now Mozilla Navigator starts? Not Mozilla Mail...

Comment 9

[Tony Jordan]

I just tried this on 2001031204 (win98) and there is no registered application
on my machine for .eml files.  I have mozilla set up as my default browser, but
it doesn't seem to have registered that extention.

Comment 10

[Henrik Gemal]

Since Mozilla Navigator can register ".html", ".htm", ".xul" files, Mozilla Mail 
should register ".eml" files

Perhaps some of the people that made the registration of html files could be 
added to this bug.

Comment 11

[Henrik Gemal]

Is this bug assigned correctly or is there someone in charge of File 
Associations?

Comment 12

[Tony Tovar]

Any word on if the current Mozilla release is vulnerable to the Nimda virus?  It
spreads (in part) by adding javascript to web-sites so that they force an .EML
file onto users.  If you're unlucky enough to be running IE, the .EML will
auto-execute it's attached file (the virus).

My next thought was that this might be what was needed to finally push my
organization to implement Mozilla instead of IE...

Comment 13

[Henrik Gemal]

Mozilla is NOT vulnerable to the virus. I've surted to websites that had the 
virus, and Mozilla just displays a window with the mail message, but doesn't run 
the program or anything.

Comment 14

[Christopher Aillon (sabbatical, not receiving bugmail)]

See also bug 11076 -- dupe?

Comment 15

[Mike Young]

not quite a dup, but close.... I have no doubt that the fix for that bug will
fix this, but the fix for this bug requires only that .eml be registered to open
in mozilla.... if it opens in a new mail window, great... but thats not this bug

Comment 16

[[not reading bugmail]]

I just noticed this one today.. as it opens with Mozilla only on The 'Open WITH'
option after selection checkbox in Mail&Newsgroups for make 'Mozilla mail
default mail application' .. 

this looks like any of the other open mozilla files bugs, its just not
registering yet... it should add it automatically to the registered list when
choosing this checkbox item, and fix up the file open info on each platform.  I
dont think we need to add this to system settings.. but I do think checking the
checkbox should cover this.

Comment 17

[WD]

*** Bug 147835 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 18

[guanxi]

Verifying it's still a bug in 1.1 beta  (2002072204) on Win2K:  When I
double-click a *.eml file, Win2K loads Outlook Express.

Preferences | Mail & Newsgroups | Use Moz as default is checked.

Has this slipped under the radar perhaps?

Comment 19

[Mike Young]

woah... yes, 6 months without a comment by a developer counts as "off the radar"

mscott as assignee, can you take a look at this quickly? it shouuld be a simple
patch and it really should be fixed. (We have all of our other types registered.)

If I had a build environment available (alas, 56k until school starts...) I'd
make the changes... Since I can't... we need to add .eml to
xpfe/components/prefwindow/resources/content/pref-winhooks.js
xpfe/components/prefwindow/resources/locale/en-US/pref-winhooks.dtd
xpfe/components/winhooks/nsWindowsHooks.cpp

is there stuff for other OSs too? Or does winhooks cover Mac and *nix as well?
(Although I guess there is no *.eml files on those platforms anyway...

Adding Bill Law since he did work on these files

Comment 20

[Pascal Chevrel:pascalc (PTO until April 26)]

BTW, I think that it could be considered as a security problem since mozilla
users expect that clicking on a eml message should open Mozilla and not OE,
which is a problem since OE is so vulnerable to mail viruses. A Mozilla user
would certainely not have OE with the latest security patches since he doesn't
use it.

Comment 21

[Brian Rogers]

Attachment: patch to add .eml files to system prefs

With comment 19 and a little searching, I believe I got all areas which need to
be updated for a new file association pref, but I'm not sure.  In any case,
this patch works.

My only concern is that without the Mail & News component installed, Mozilla
can't read .eml files, but the setting is still there, and if you try to open
one you get a download window.

My guess is that's why this bug hasn't been worked on so far: it's unclear
whether the pref should go in the System prefs and be hidden when Mail & News
isn't available, or if the .eml association should be tied to Mozilla Mail &
News being default.

Comment 22

[priebe]

Just a statement:

It should be avoided in any case that users have to use outlook. :-)
My wife would argue: "Why should I use Mozilla when I have to use outlook anyway
to open stored mails?"

It is possibly a little bit low-down and in the past I found that this can't be
the way, but in the meantime I changed my opinion:
Mozilla should always snap up all file-types it can handle and take care that
they stay. :-)
Just like real-player or all microsoft-tools do.

Again my wife would tell me: "There was an error message that xxx-files are not
handled by Microsoft-yyy. I fixed it by clicking OK."

So conclusion:
Get the eml-type anyway and force the user to install the mail-component.

Just my opinion. :-)

Comment 23

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

I haven't had a chance to fully review yet, but I don't think we need new UI for
this.

We already have, in prefs:

"Mail & Newsgroups | Use Mozilla Mail as the default Mail Application"

If that was checked, we should poke the registry to say we handle .eml.

Comment 24

[Brian Rogers]

That would probably be fine, but then it would also make this (I think) the only
file type Mozilla registers without an associated setting in Advanced->System.

Check out the "Set Default Browser" button.  That already changes the settings
in Advanced->System.
Perhaps the checkbox to use Mozilla as the default mail app could work the same
way, while the option for .eml could be put in by an overlay.

After all, the news:// protocol should be added to the prefs too, and that would
also require the work of creating an overlay, and certainly should not be tied
to the setting for whether Mozilla is the default mail app.

Comment 25

[Andrew Hagen]

The problem is that Mozilla can only do something with eml files if Mail is
installed. But how is the Browser supposed to know whether Mail is installed?

What we really need is not another entry in Browser | Edit | Preferences |
Advanced | System for eml files, but a new field in Mail & Newsgroups | Edit |
Mail & Newsgroups Account Settings  for filetype associations. In those
associations would be, among others, eml. Then Mail & Newsgroups would need the
feature of "alert me when other software tries to change these settings" that
the browser has. 

Is this on the right track?

Comment 26

[Andrew Hagen]

On second thought, maybe we should just enter this patch into the trunk and then
fix other problems in other bugs.

Comment 27

[David Tenser [:djst]]

Even if I manually open a .eml file in Mozilla, it does not behave as Outlook
Express does.

If, for example, I open a .eml file containing the line "X-Unsent: 1", I expect
a mail compose window to appear. In Mozilla, the contents of the file is just
displayed in a normal browser window (not even a "read email" window!).

Clearly, this isn't just an issue with Mozilla not registering the file type
correctly, it doesn't even support the file type in the first place.

Comment 28

[Alan]

just in response to comment #c27

while mozilla may not support the .eml file format and there is slightly more to 
this than simply adding a file association, mozilla does already have the 
ability to import outlook mailboxes and understands MIME so it would not require 
a huge extension of existing code.  
currently the .eml file seem to be treated as if it were plain text.  

i guess that bug 11076 covers the backend work that this bug requires to be 
really fixed.  I am thinking about marking it as a blocker for this, but i am 
not sure.  

Comment 29

[Samir Gehani]

Mail triage team: nsbeta1-

Comment 30

[Aaron Kaluszka]

*** Bug 201882 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 31

[Aaron Kaluszka]

That patch will not work as intended.  This will require overlays since EML is
part of Mail/News not Browser.  (See bug 160141).

Comment 32

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

antonio xu recent changes for bug #143565 should make this possible now.

Comment 33

[Robert Accettura [:raccettura]]

We've figured out how to do this with the File menu, this is the obvious next
logical step.

Would be a nice 0.6 patch.

Comment 34

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+1]]

*** Bug 240681 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 35

[Christian Ertl]

If I open a eml file with Mozilla, I'll get a correct view of it, but in a
browser instead of a mail window.
And if I want to change character encoding, the mail will change to be shown as
source  (as with Crtl+U) without CRs/LFs.
???

Comment 36

[Tony Reeves]

I have a large Govt organisation on my back for a resolution for this.
A quich hack I did, in w2k file associations I have "C:\WINNT\eml-open.cmd "%1""
as the file association for .eml files and a script C:\WINNT\eml-open.cmd which
contains...

@echo off
"C:\Program Files\mozilla.org\mozilla\mozilla.exe" -compose
subject="%~n1",attachment='file:///%1'

That opens the file in composer.  I send the message to myself/others and the
original message, plus attachments are received.  Not perfect, but it will do
for now.

Comment 37

[Robin Lionheart]

*** Bug 261559 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 38

[Ascoët]

(In reply to comment #36)
With Thunderbird under OS X , this is a big problem, because Mac users have the habit that the 
system is always "integrated". Thus, Thunderbird should have an option to associate itself with eml 
files like any other mail client, and associate the Th icon to the eml document type, because the 
white "unknow" icon is ugly. This shouldn't be very hard !

Comment 39

[Joseph Peach]

36 votes now, will this make it into 1.1? bug since 2000, wow.

Comment 40

[David :Bienvenu]

see bug 261559 for the thunderbird version of this. Tbird 1.1 will support
registering for the .eml extension, and opening .eml files from the command line

Comment 42

[Philip Chee]

Bug 261559 is shared mailnews code so SeaMonkey should also have picked up this fix. Closing.