284004 - When I start browser by double-clicking a local .html file, it should start offline.

Status: NEW

(Toolkit :: Startup and Profile System, enhancement)

Description

[John David Galt]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

When browser is started with a file on my local machine specified as the URL, or
when it is started by double-clicking on a file of type .html or .htm, the
browser ought to automatically start in offline mode.  (Conversely, when invoked
on a network URL, it should start online.)  Because the browser fails to make
this distinction at startup (and I can't change this in Preferences -- the only
options are to always start online, always offline, or remember the state from
last run), it keeps initiating needless dialup connections.

While we're at it, if I'm working offline and then type a non-local URL, I want
the browser to automatically go online without requiring an explicit command or
even a dialog-box confirmation first.

I realize that not everyone uses the browser the way I do, so both of these new
behaviors should be options settable within Preferences.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:




I'm not using the very newest version of Firefox, but I doubt this behavior has
changed any time recently.

I considered "Enhancement" rather than "Minor" for severity -- it's borderline.

Comment 1

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

This is an enhancement, the current behaviour is intended.  I don't think we
really want to go down this path, since it does involve a lot of guesswork.  And
of course, this really falls into the bounds of extension material, since this
is certainly something that isn't expected behaviour for many people, especially
with the growth of cheaper broadband services around the world.

Comment 2

[John David Galt]

What guesswork?  If the URL begins with file: or about: you start offline, for
any other prefix you start online.

The underlying problem, in my opinion, is that the browser hooks into and uses
the bizarre Windows concept of a "URL" (of which files are one type) rather than
simply make itself the application that opens files with extensions such as .html
and .htm (which would allow "-offline" to be included in the command line for
that file-type action).

Comment 3

[Jesse Ruderman]

I think the reporter is asking for a "half-offline" mode whose only difference
from "online" mode is that the browser does not try to access the automatic
update service.  That seems like a reasonable enhancement request to me.

Comment 4

[John David Galt]

I disagree with comment #3.  Not only would a "half-offline mode" fail to work
sensibly (as in the following examples), it is also more complicated, both in
concept and implementation, than the simple and correct behavior in comment #2.
Example 1.  User starts browser with a local file URL, then types a remote URL.
 Under "half-offline mode" the browser would initiate a phone connection,
unasked, as soon as the remote URL is typed.  The sensible and correct behavior
would be to stay in offline mode (displaying the URL from cache if present
there) until the user makes an explicit mode switch.
Example 2.  User starts browser with a remote URL.  Under "half-offline mode"
the browser initiates a phone connection as now, but the auto-update feature is
still silently disabled.  The sensible and correct behavior is for auto-update
always to operate normally once a connection to the Net has been made.

Comment 5

[Bruce Smith]

As a general user I would like to make the comment that this is non-intuitive.
If I double-click a local .html file to view it in Firefox, as a user I would
expect that any URL in the file will work immediately. If the application is
changed to switch into off-line mode, online URL's won't work and will cause the
user to become annoyed.

In these current days of broadband and permanent connections, making this a
default feature will detract from Firefox. If such behaviour is desired by some
people, I would suggest keeping it off by default.

Comment 6

[John David Galt]

I see no conflict here.  If you start by opening a local .html file, and later
click on a remote URL, the browser should silently go online <b>then</b>, as
already requested in bug 290543.  That's perfectly intuitive.

Comment 7

[Bruce Smith]

(In reply to comment #6)
> I see no conflict here.  If you start by opening a local .html file, and later
> click on a remote URL, the browser should silently go online <b>then</b>, as
> already requested in bug 290543.  That's perfectly intuitive.

If that does happen, then its okay. But if I'm in off-line mode in 1.0.3 it is
anything but silent. Firefox pops up a dialog saying I'm in offline mode and
need to online to view the page. That dialog should be able to take you out of
offline mode like IE does, but it doesn't as outlined in the referenced bug.
That one's been around since Firefox first came out.

If they fix that, one of my pet hates, then I agree with your suggestion.

Comment 8

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
are asking for your help in focussing our efforts. If you can still reproduce
this problem in the latest version of the product (see below for how to obtain a
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you still believe we should implement it, please visit the URL of this bug
(given at the top of this mail) and add a comment to that effect, giving more
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If it is not a problem any longer, you need take no action. If this bug is not
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Thank you for your help in this matter.

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Seamonkey:   http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

Comment 9

[John David Galt]

I still believe this enhancement is needed.

Comment 10

[John David Galt]

If I could find the code in Firefox that controls online/offline status, I would have submitted a patch long since.
Here is how I have in mind for the new feature to work:
(a) Modify the openURL() command and its underlying C++ method to have an additional argument: "requested".  This will be boolean and TRUE by default.  If TRUE it means that the user explicitly requested that the URL be loaded (by typing the URL, clicking on a link to it, or getting redirected there by another explicitly requested page); if FALSE it means the openURL() request came from Mozilla's auto-update feature or similar.
   If the browser is off-line and an attempt is made to load a page that is not on a local disk or in the cache, then "requested" should determine openURL's behavior.  If "requested" is true, the browser should switch to online mode (with or without asking first, according to preference settings) as it does now; but if "requested" is FALSE, openURL() should simply return a "page not found" error.