292925 - New windows in extensions open behind older ones.

Status: VERIFIED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Rich Cook]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en-US) AppleWebKit/125.4 (KHTML, like Gecko, Safari) OmniWeb/v563.34
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.7.6) Gecko/20050223 Firefox/1.0.1 StumbleUpon/1.9995

To reproduce the problem, do the following.  (The problem is the same from Bookmarks Synchronizer, 
although it obviously needs to open other windows). 
1)  Install syncmarks 0.3 extension 
2)  Click "Browse"
The file browsing window opens behind the current window yet does not have the focus and focus 
cannot be moved to it.  You have to close the SyncMarks window first, then click "OK", which is 
obviously not what is needed here. 

This might be related to bug 232605, but I cannot tell.  I hope it is appropriate that I call this a "major 
feature" that is broken, as it is the only reason I do not use Firefox.  I use Omniweb because it does 
bookmark synchronization.  Firefox cannot do this for me due merely to this one, old, outstanding bug.  

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1)  Install syncmarks 0.3 extension 
2)  open synchmarks extension by double clicking it in the list of extensions. 
2)  Click "Browse"
Actual Results:  
The file browsing window opens behind the current window yet does not have the focus and focus 
cannot be moved to it.  You have to close the SyncMarks window first, then click "OK", which is 
obviously not what is needed here. 


Expected Results:  
Should have opened the file browsing window in front of the syncmarks window.

Comment 1

[Nickolay_Ponomarev]

If this is a problem with that extension specifically, then this is invalid,
report it to author instead. However if this is a problem with Mozilla, the
report needs to be more technical, with a simple testcase etc.

Comment 2

[Rich Cook]

The problem affects more than one extension.   
That is why I thought it's a Firefox bug.   For example, you can click the "Choose Folder" button in 
SyncMarks 0.3 and you will see the problem.  Or, you can click "Browse" in Bookmarks Synchronizer to 
see it.   
However, it seems that it does NOT occur in FlashGot 0.5.9.2.  Perhaps it is then an extension problem.     
But I cannot be sure because I don't have the source code for FlashGot.  I'm not sure how to proceed...

Comment 3

[Nickolay_Ponomarev]

As I said, a more technical (XUL/JS code-level) description is needed. Then
we'll be able to find a dupe :)  Get someone experienced with that to look in
the extensions to see what's causing it.

Comment 4

[Rich Cook]

Hmm.  The authors of both extensions are too busy to glance at it.  One author's solution was to mark 
his product as incompatible with OS X.  :-( 
I have no idea why their code would act differently on OS X than it would on Windows;  this sounds like 
some difference in the way that the code is handled by Firefox (I doubt if it is a Java bug in Apple's 
code).  But what do I know?  As you point out, I have no experience in this area. 
But I am willing to try to help if somebody will guide me a bit;  I do have access to the code of one of 
the plugins.  I could step through the source code with a tool from the Firefox website, I am told by one 
of the authors.  The trouble is, I don't have the source to the working code, to see what the difference is 
in the handler for that button click.  I would think that's all it might take.  
I'll contact the author of the working plugin to see if I can get his code under a promise of non-
disclosure, or at least the part that opens that window.   

Comment 5

[Rich Cook]

Another data point:  when using the StumbleUpon extension, I got an alert saying I need to go create a 
stumbleupon profile.  But the alert appeared behind all other windows and could not be brought 
forward except using the Window menu.  The reason is that the alert had the focus but was behind the 
other windows, so clicks in other windows were ignored and there was no way to click in the alert.  This 
is the same bad behavior exhibited by the other windows I have described in SyncMarks and 
BookmarksSynchronizer.  Either lots of people are doing the same thing wrong in their extension code, 
or there is a more general issue with the Firefox extension/window behavior on OS X.  
(To reproduce this one, get the StumbleUpon extension on OS X and try to double click on it before you 
have signed up for anything)

Comment 6

[Rich Cook]

Sigh.  I installed the "Venkman" JS debugger but I cannot make it stop in any of the extension source 
code.  I figured out how to set a breakpoint in an extension, but when I run the extension, the 
breakpoint is ignored. 
Sigh. 

Comment 7

[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
copy) or, for feature requests, if it's not present in the latest version and
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
reproduction information if you have it.

If it is not a problem any longer, you need take no action. If this bug is not
changed in any way in the next two weeks, it will be automatically resolved.
Thank you for your help in this matter.

The latest beta releases can be obtained from:
Firefox:     http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/
Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/releases/1.5beta1.html
Seamonkey:   http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

Comment 8

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

Rich - this wouldn't be an extension manager bug since the extension manager
manages an extension's install, uninstall, upgrade, etc. but not the code an
extension uses to open a window. Not sure which component this should be in so
moving to general for triage.

Comment 9

[Rich Cook]

I just wanted to confirm that the bug still exists in the latest beta as of 09/28/2005.  I wonder why it is 
still unconfirmed.  I guess there are no Macintosh people with the time to reproduce it?  

Comment 10

[Nickolay_Ponomarev]

>I guess there are no Macintosh people with the time to reproduce it?  

Right.

Comment 11

[Rich Cook]

That makes sense.  I'd gladly spend a few hours to fix it, but unfortunately it would take me more than 
that to get up to speed about the general project to get anywhere near the problem.  

Comment 12

[Samuel Sidler (old account; do not CC)]

Rich, are you still able to reproduce this using Firefox 2.0.0.3 and a clean profile?

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Manager

Comment 13

[Samuel Sidler (old account; do not CC)]

Closing as INCOMPLETE due to lack of updates. If you can reproduce this using Firefox 2.0.0.3 or later with a clean profile and can provide link to extensions this happens in, please comment with the appropriate information.