294199 - Forced to save text file. Open with is disabled

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: File Handling, defect)

Description

[M]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20041001 Firefox/0.10.1 rd
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20041001 Firefox/0.10.1

Some text file types can only be saved to disk. Maybe this only happens to file
types known to be executables like .vbs, .bat, etc.

Since these are plain text files (and in fact, even if they were not), I should
have the option to open them with my favorite editor/viewer/whatever.

In fact, I should also have the option to just have Firefox open them as plain text.



Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. open a URL to a .vbs file like http://www.jordanmills.com/prune.vbs

Actual Results:  
Open dialog opens, with no other choice than "Save as".

Expected Results:  
Ability to select "Open with", including open as text/plain with Firefox.



This is similar to bug <a
href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=57342">57342</a>, except that
the original poster of that bug did have the option to "open with", which is not
the case with some file types.

Comment 1

[OstGote!]

Please upgrade to FF 1.0.4!

(In reply to comment #0)
> Some text file types can only be saved to disk. Maybe this only happens to file
> types known to be executables like .vbs, .bat, etc.

Right, for security reasons.

Comment 2

[M]

> Right, for security reasons.

Security??? Are you saying that it is safer to download an executable onto the
desktop where the user may double-click it, rather than opening it as plain text
in Firefox or in a text viewer/editor?

(Sorry if you were joking and I didn't get it)

Comment 3

[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 4

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This bug has been automatically resolved after a period of inactivity (see above
comment). If anyone thinks this is incorrect, they should feel free to reopen it.

Comment 5

[M]

This bug is still in FF3 beta 3. And the test URL still works to show it. It's header is correct: "Content-Type: text/vbscript", so it should be possible to open it in FF as text. Instead, it can only be saved.

This is actually also a security risk since it can then easily be double-clicked, instead of a harmless plain text display in FF.

Comment 6

[Kevin Brosnan]

This is a dupe of the bug in comment 0 or bug 185618 which deals with servers that use the content type attachment. Firefox requires the server to send the file with the mime type text/plain to display as text currently. The file is no longer present so a determination of which was happening is no longer possible.