269917 - Support for ISBN URN Scheme (RFC3187)

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core :: Networking, enhancement)

Description

[Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-GB; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041110 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-GB; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041110 Firefox/1.0

This is a request for a user to be able to access information on books
referenced by `href' or `cite' attributes with values of an ISBN URN in (X)HTML
documents.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
Click on a hyperlink of the form urn:isbn:* (or secondary click: properties on
some text with an associated cite attribute).

Actual Results:  
A dialog appears stating that "URN is not a registered protocol" (or in the case
of `cite' the URN isn't even displayed correctly--bug 175074)

Expected Results:  
A user should be able to click on an ISBN hyperlink on a page (or click on an
ISBN hyperlink within the element properties dialog on some text on a page
quoted from a book) and be taken to a WWW book database (or bookstore) of their
choice (set through a pref) or offered a browser-generated list of links to
databases and stores.  A system should also be set up so that extensions (e.g.:
Mozilla Amazon Browser) or external applications (e.g.: library catalogue
software) can potentially be called when a ISBN link is encountered.

Comment 1

[Jo Hermans]

isn't this just a dupe of bug 175074 ?

Comment 2

[Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley]

If you read bug 175074 it is a real _bug_ that causes the display of `cite' ISBN
URNs in element properties to be mangled (that is it actually shows the wrong URI).

This is bug is an _RFE_ for making `href' URNs in a WWW page _and_ `cite' ones
in element properties both into clickable links that give the user more
information about the relevant book.  (I know these are two things but it seemed
silly opening two bugs as they are very inter-related and as the current buggy
behaviour with 'cite' URNs has already been filed as bug 175074--which blocks
this.  Anyway this bug is probably destined for `future'...)

Comment 3

[Anne (:annevk)]

How could Mozilla know where you can find useful information for a particular
ISBN number? (Also, 'isbn' is not a scheme, it is a namespace.)

Although this is a valid RFE, I think it might end up being wontfixed.

Comment 4

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

*** Bug 288416 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 5

[Henry Story]

As I mention in a duplicate of this bug (bug 288416) one could allow the user to
write a regexp to convert urn:isbn:xxx URIs into URLs that would then be fetched.
(there may be of course more userfriendly ways of doing this)

I also mention  how the link could make the service one wishes to use selectable.
Also see my blog entry (http://bblfish.net/blog/page6.html#49) for links to
other places where I have tried to get some feedback on this issue.

I think this would be a great new functionality to add to firefox, and would catch
on quite wildly once out and about. It would also start making the use of URNs
much more interesting. 

Comment 6

[Tristan Miller]

Anne, to answer your question as to where Mozilla would know where to find
information about a book, most online book databases (including libraries and
bookstores) now allow GET queries on ISBNs.  It's therefore rather trivial for a
knowledgeable user to specify some sort of URL with a placeholder somewhere in
the query string where the ISBN should go.  The Mozilla developers could
probably ease this process by providing a list of commonly used databases.

Take a look at how Wikipedia handles ISBNs.  Whenever someone references an ISBN
in an article, it is converted to a hyperlink to "book sources" page with links
to various book databases:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Booksources&isbn=0877791457

Note that the hyperlinks in the list of book sources are pretty much all URLs of
the form

http://some_book_seller.example.com/search_the_catalogue?isbn=0877791457

Comment 7

[Dan Tobias]

Perhaps the Wikipedia URL with the ISBN inserted would be a good default value
for this feature if it were to be implemented (though this would be best off
varying in localized versions, as the link shown is to the English Wikipedia
specifically; does the same feature work in other language Wikipedias?). 
Advanced users would be able to reconfigure it to go to their favorite other
site (a library, an online bookstore, etc.).

Comment 8

[WulfTheSaxon [:Wulf]]

(In reply to comment #3)
> How could Mozilla know where you can find useful information for a particular
> ISBN number? (Also, 'isbn' is not a scheme, it is a namespace.)
> 
> Although this is a valid RFE, I think it might end up being wontfixed.

See RFC 3187: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3187