295728 - Resubmit postdata dialog should allow user to view data

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Toolkit :: Form Manager, enhancement)

Description

[Nathan]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050421 Firefox/1.0.4 (MOOX M2)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050421 Firefox/1.0.4 (MOOX M2)

The dialog warning users to resubmit postdata should include a "View Postdata"
button that expands the window, allowing the user to see what data is being
resubmitted, in a human-readable form.  This is one of the few remaining
esoteric dialogs, and it often crops up when users least expect it (when hitting
the "back" or "reload" button).  Sometimes even I don't know what postdata has
been submitted, so it would be a great help to be able to examine it.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Fill out a form that uses postdata.  Submit the data
2. Browse to another site.
3. Go back.

Actual Results:  
The enigmatic "POSTDATA" dialog appears.

Expected Results:  
The informative "POSTDATA" dialog appears.

Comment 1

[Alex Tanner]

(In reply to comment #0)
> User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.8)
Gecko/20050421 Firefox/1.0.4 (MOOX M2)
> Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.8)
Gecko/20050421 Firefox/1.0.4 (MOOX M2)
> 
> The dialog warning users to resubmit postdata should include a "View Postdata"
> button that expands the window, allowing the user to see what data is being
> resubmitted, in a human-readable form.  This is one of the few remaining
> esoteric dialogs, and it often crops up when users least expect it (when hitting
> the "back" or "reload" button).  Sometimes even I don't know what postdata has
> been submitted, so it would be a great help to be able to examine it.
> 
> Reproducible: Always
> 
> Steps to Reproduce:
> 1. Fill out a form that uses postdata.  Submit the data
> 2. Browse to another site.
> 3. Go back.
> 
> Actual Results:  
> The enigmatic "POSTDATA" dialog appears.
> 
> Expected Results:  
> The informative "POSTDATA" dialog appears.

Personally, I don't think there should be a POSTDATA dialog at all, because it
is not user friendly: a lot of people will not even have a clue what POSTDATA
is. Also, the message is just as annoying as a popup ad: it appears when you
click 'Back' and go to a POSTDATA page, often multiple times. As choosing 'OK'
from the POSTDATA dialog options goes back anyway, and 'Cancel' stays on the
current page, it seems as useful as a dialog box asking you 'Are you sure you
want to go back?'. If a user clicked 'Back' and went to a POSTDATA site, they
would just be able to click 'Forward' to return to whatever site they were on,
so the POSTDATA dialog seems unnecessary.

Comment 2

[Mark Caudill]

(In reply to comment #0)
> User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.8)
> Gecko/20050421 Firefox/1.0.4 (MOOX M2)
> Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.8)
> Gecko/20050421 Firefox/1.0.4 (MOOX M2)
> 
> The dialog warning users to resubmit postdata should include a "View Postdata"
> button that expands the window, allowing the user to see what data is being
> resubmitted, in a human-readable form.  This is one of the few remaining
> esoteric dialogs, and it often crops up when users least expect it (when
> hitting
> the "back" or "reload" button).  Sometimes even I don't know what postdata has
> been submitted, so it would be a great help to be able to examine it.
> 
> Reproducible: Always
> 
> Steps to Reproduce:
> 1. Fill out a form that uses postdata.  Submit the data
> 2. Browse to another site.
> 3. Go back.
> 
> Actual Results:  
> The enigmatic "POSTDATA" dialog appears.
> 
> Expected Results:  
> The informative "POSTDATA" dialog appears.
> 


This should also be implemented into the "View Page Info" upon visiting a page for developer needs...  Sometimes a developer needs to see if the correct data is being sent from a form for debugging purposes (without having to build into the site something to echo/print the data).

Also HIGHLY related and should be implement with this change is:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=301063

Comment 3

[Justin Dolske [:Dolske]]

In most cases the form is just going to have gobbledygook data, it doesn't really help the user decide if it's safe to repost, and this isn't the kind of decision for force off onto users anyway.