270434 - Thunderbird should not ignore middle mouse button click or Ctrl+Click on Links/URLs in messages

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, enhancement)

Description

[Eyal Rozenberg]

I'm used, from MailNews, to opening links with a click using the middle mouse
button. But in TB, this does nothing... I suggest that a middle mouse button, if
not having some special action to get the same effect as 'open in new browser
tab' in MailNews, should at least be the same as a left mouse button click.

Comment 1

[Emmanuel Roubion]

Coming from the Mozilla Suite, I do agree the middle-click behavior "open in new
browser tab" is very missing. I'd like the same feature to cope with any mozilla
browser (Firefox, Mozilla Navigator...). Actually, the lack of the feature
prevents me to switch to Firefox + Thunderbird. Really.

Comment 2

[Frank Griffin]

This is not just Thunderbird.  The same behavior has appeared in the Mandrake
Mozilla 1.7.5 RPM.

Comment 3

[Eyal Rozenberg]

(In reply to comment #2)

That is a different bug altogether. Thunderbird is not _supposed_ to have this
behavior now, I'm asking for it as a feature. Mozilla suite _is_ supposed to
have it, so if it's not working, that's either a problem with Mandrake, with the
RPM or with Mozilla 1.7.5.

Comment 4

[Olly Hodgson]

This is what I'd like to see it do:

Left mouse click a link: Open a new window/tab in the user's default browser *in
the foreground* - the browser appears in front and takes the focus (how it works
now).

Middle mouse click a link: Open a new window/tab in the user's default browser
*in the background* - Thunderbird keeps the focus and stays in front (if you see
what I mean).

What do people think?

Comment 5

[Eyal Rozenberg]

I disagree. I believe the behavior should be just as though you were
middle-clicking in MailNews and having the link opened in a seamonkey browser
window. That is to say, the browser's new tab policy should dictate whether the
new tab should be opened in the background or not. Uniformity of interface
behavior of both seamonkey and ff+tb is what's missing AFAIAC.

Comment 6

[Thomi Dammann]

(In reply to comment #3)
> Mozilla suite _is_ supposed to
> have it, so if it's not working, that's either a problem with Mandrake, with the
> RPM or with Mozilla 1.7.5.
> 

This feature doesn't work with Mozilla 1.7.5 Debian package, too.

Comment 7

[Eyal Rozenberg]

Try opening a different bug (if one does not already exist) regarding the
middle-click issue with Mozilla suite on Linux. Resummarizing.

Comment 8

[Nickolay_Ponomarev]

Let this be about doing /something/ on middle-click (e.g. same as left-click, as
suggested in comment 0) and bug 273058 is about making it configurable.

Comment 9

[carl]

The left mouse-button does what it should. The middle-button should open a new
tab in the background (keeping focus on Thunderbird).

It is very anyoing, when you read newsletters to always switch between TB and
FF. Costs a lot of clicks refocussing on the newsletter each time you click on a
news headline. 

If someone does not like this feature, s/he can use the left button! BTW this
feature is working in Moz Suite, why not use it?

Comment 10

[Worcester12345]

See also:
Bug 172962 Comment #107

Bug 35578
Bug 255123
Bug 263553

Comment 11

[carl]

(In reply to comment #10)
> See also:
> Bug 172962 Comment #107
> 
> Bug 35578
> Bug 255123
> Bug 263553
These bugs do not handle the problem of keeping the focus on Thunderbird.

Is anybody working on this problem?

Comment 12

[Jonathan Pritchard]

(In reply to comment #5)
> I disagree. I believe the behavior should be just as though you were
> middle-clicking in MailNews and having the link opened in a seamonkey browser
> window. That is to say, the browser's new tab policy should dictate whether the
> new tab should be opened in the background or not. Uniformity of interface
> behavior of both seamonkey and ff+tb is what's missing AFAIAC.

I disagree that this is a trivial bug it affects me on a daily basis and it is a consistency issue that needs to be resolved. However I'm afraid I do not have the knowledge to do so.

Comment 16

[Gary Kwong [:gkw] [:nth10sd] (NOT official MoCo now)]

Moving from wanted‑thunderbird3.0a1? flag to wanted‑thunderbird3.0a2? flag since code for Thunderbird 3 Alpha 1 has been frozen.

Comment 17

[Bryan Clark (DevTools PM) [:clarkbw]]

I haven't given this problem too much thought so I'm not too sure about this, however I am planning on making the middle click mouse button open folders, accounts, and messages in new tabs (bug 435567).  

ref: bug 218999 and the landing of the patch in bug 402365 


Is there a way to open up new links in a tab in other browsers like IE, Safari?

Comment 18

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Yes - IE7, Safari, Opera, Chrome all open new tabs by middle-click.

Comment 19

[Bryan Clark (DevTools PM) [:clarkbw]]

> Yes - IE7, Safari, Opera, Chrome all open new tabs by middle-click.

By middle clicking from a different application?  I assumed that's what this bug was about.

Comment 20

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Ah, correct.
That part I assume is semi-nonfixable... Plus, now it would be odd if thunderbird didn't use the middle-click to open it's *own* tags.

Comment 21

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Not an immediate focus of TB 3. Doesn't mean we wouldn't accept patches though.

Comment 22

[Lu-Tze]

Isn't this bug fixed because of the fix for Bug 435567?

Comment 23

[Eyal Rozenberg]

I don't think so, that's just about opening mail messages, not web links, right?

Comment 24

[Lu-Tze]

My bad.  I did not make out the difference on the first go around.  Sorry.

Comment 26

[Worcester12345]

Why the "middle" mouse button at all? Isn't this what is expected of the left mouse button anyhow? Not sure if the "Tab Clicking Options" extension at http://twanno.mozdev.org/ would help here or not.

Comment 27

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to comment #21)
> Not an immediate focus of TB 3. Doesn't mean we wouldn't accept patches though.

Which file(s) do I have to look at for a patch? (MXR-links)

Comment 28

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

AFIAK there is no existing mozilla code to do this - so you'd be writing it from scratch - likely one implementation per platform.

Comment 29

[Dan Mosedale (:dmosedale, :dmose)]

http://mxr.mozilla.org/comm-central/source/mail/base/content/contentAreaClick.js#117

Comment 30

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

(To make it middle click open like a normal click shouldn't be too hard of course, it's the "extra" features like making it open in background/tab-in-browser that are hard.)

Comment 31

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to comment #29)
> http://mxr.mozilla.org/comm-central/source/mail/base/content/contentAreaClick.js#117

Thank you, Dan.

Questions:
1) Where are the modifiers checked?
I don't see any modifier differentiation (ctrl/alt/shift) in the code. But we do differentiate, otherwise ctrl+leftclick would do the same as leftclick. Any hints as to where that happens?

2) contentAreaClick.js - where is it in the build?
Could you help me locate that file in my existing TB3pre installation?
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.5pre) Gecko/20091013 Shredder/3.0pre
This is where I looked but did not find the file:
C:\Programme\Shredder3.0pre\chrome\messenger.zip, and therein:
content/messenger/
That's where I find some of the neighbouring files (configEditorOverlay.xul, credits.xhtml), but not contentAreaClick.js. So where is it?

Comment 32

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to comment #30)
> (To make it middle click open like a normal click shouldn't be too hard of
> course, it's the "extra" features like making it open in
> background/tab-in-browser that are hard.)

I think this bug actually wants ctrl+left-click on links to do the same as just left-click on links. Which imo would be nice behaviour:

STR:
1) read mail
2) left-click on link in msg body
3) ctrl+left-click on link in msg body

Actual behaviour:
2) left-click opens the link in the default browser (FF) (in a new tab, which is probably just the default for URLs passed to FF from externally) - ok
3) ctrl+left-click: nothing happens - this bug

Expected behaviour:
3) ctrl+left-click (just like left-click) should open the link in the default browser (FF) (in a new tab)

IMO, no need to add extra complexity here, we just want ctrl-click to open the link rather than do nothing.
Magnus, any problems with the expected behaviour?

Comment 33

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.4) Gecko/20100608 Lightning/1.0b2 Thunderbird/3.1

Part of this bug seems fixed:
Ctrl-Clicking on auto-linkified and real links in a mail messages now opens the page in the default browser in a new tab, as requested by this bug.
Middle-Clicking unfortunately still doesn't do anything at all.

Comment 34

[Thomas Bertels]

Attachment: Handle middle mouse button click on links

Follow-up of bug 527922: only check for right click.

Comment 35

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Comment on attachment 453026 [details] [diff] [review]
Handle middle mouse button click on links

Changing the review to a ui-review - the UI change needs confirmation especially as Bryan wasn't convinced about this bug before.

Comment 36

[Bryan Clark (DevTools PM) [:clarkbw]]

Comment on attachment 453026 [details] [diff] [review]
Handle middle mouse button click on links

I can't think of a real issue with this change and our cmd/ctrl click works in a similar way so lets see how it goes.

Comment 37

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Comment on attachment 453026 [details] [diff] [review]
Handle middle mouse button click on links

This looks fine, thanks for the patch. r=Standard8.

Comment 38

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Thanks, I've checked this in for you as well:

http://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/13f020c62b7a

Comment 39

[Thomas Bertels]

You're welcome.
And thanks for the reviews.

Comment 40

[Paul]

As a retail product end user without access to the development tools for TBird, how would I add middle-click support to Thunderbird, like version 3.1.20, I haven't and wont be updating to latest TBird versions? The app installed folders have numerous js files that I could update with equivalent code, but not the contentAreaClick.js referenced and updated with the few lines of code necessary to support middle-clicks on URLs to open in default web-browser / firefox.

Hope you can help id what files I could add equivalent code to, and what that code would be in context/line numbers of the file to update. Thanks for any help you can offer, aside from install latest TBird version!

Comment 41

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

I hope you realize tb 3.1 is an ancient version, with numerous known security problems. You really should update.

Comment 42

[Thomas Bertels]

You can extract all the .jar files and search for the contentAreaClick.js. Then you replace the original contentAreaClick.js in the .jar file by the edited one.