297643 - Context menu option to open link/image using an external application

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Menus, enhancement)

Description

[Robert Rothenberg]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511 Firefox/1.0.4
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511 Firefox/1.0.4

It would be a great feature to be able to open a context menu over a link, image
or plugin and be able to send that content to an external application.

For instance, I would like to open a context menu over an image and be given an
open to load that image in one of the graphics programs on my computer. (On
Windows at least, there's an "Open with..." context menu that lists all the
applications registered to open a specific file type; I imagine there's the same
ability on Mac OS/X.)

Also: need to differentiate between opening a link (in which case the URL is
sent to an application) and opening the content (a page or image is sent to the
application).

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:

Comment 1

[Adam Guthrie]

Dupe of bug 58554? 

Comment 2

[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
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Comment 3

[Helge Hielscher]

still valid in 1.0.6

Comment 4

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

I think this would make an excellent add-on, but is not something we'd want in core product. Marking WONTFIX.

Comment 5

[alex]

Hello, I think this is an important feature to be able to open files by other programs directly using WebDAV and save the changes with a PUT request. This is a feature very useful in any application that handles documents and it would give a big boost to the use of WebDAV.

The "type" attribute of "a" element can be used to indicate the content-type and allow the browser to suggest applications like in a file explorer.

<a href="" type="application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text">

---

| Open link with ... |
| Open link with LibreOffice |

Comment 6

[alex]

Can this bug be reopened?

Comment 7

[Jared Wein [:jaws] (please needinfo? me)]

Unfortunately this is probably too niche of a feature to fit this in here. We're actively trying to simplify our menus and make sure that they have the most essential items to make them easier for users to scan and find what they need to accomplish their task. I don't believe this fits in an 80%+ use-case and would be better handled by an extension or other desktop software.

Comment 8

[alex]

(In reply to Jared Wein [:jaws] (please needinfo? me) from comment #7)

Unfortunately this is probably too niche of a feature to fit this in here. We're actively trying to simplify our menus and make sure that they have the most essential items to make them easier for users to scan and find what they need to accomplish their task. I don't believe this fits in an 80%+ use-case and would be better handled by an extension or other desktop software.

Currently there are some addons that allow you to open links of some types of files. They have more difficulty installing than other addons because they also need to install a native application because the browser does not allow to run the program directly. Do you think there would be any possibility to make it easier to open applications from the browser or is it too insecure?

I have to study the possibilities that there may be using communication mechanisms like dbus or Mozilla IPDL.

Below I put some examples of these addons, they have quite a few users. There is interest in this type of functionality

https://addons.mozilla.org/es/firefox/addon/open-in-pdf-reader/?utm_source=addons.mozilla.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=search

https://addons.mozilla.org/es/firefox/addon/open-in-ie-1/?utm_source=addons.mozilla.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=search

https://addons.mozilla.org/es/firefox/addon/open-in-chrome-1/?utm_source=addons.mozilla.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=search

https://addons.mozilla.org/es/firefox/addon/open-with-idm-2/?utm_source=addons.mozilla.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=search

https://addons.mozilla.org/es/firefox/search/?q=open%20link%20application