300460 - tabbrowser.addTab("http://www.anyurl.com") doesn't load website; just sets tabtitle to url and shows javascript-error: document.getElementById("menu_closeWindow") has no properties

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Tabbed Browser, defect)

Description

[bugreporter]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.7) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0.4
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511 Firefox/1.0.4

A JavaScript error shows up when calling methods of a tabbrowser element which
is part of a xul-document. The command
mytabbrowserelement.addTab("http://www.anyurl.com") doesn't load the specified
website; it just sets the tabtitle to the url and stops with showing
javascript-error:

Error: this.mTabBrowser.mProgressListeners has no properties
Source File: chrome://global/content/bindings/tabbrowser.xml
Line: 343

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. copy the following lines to a document called tabtest.xul
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<?xml-stylesheet href="chrome://global/skin/" type="text/css"?>
<window id="yourwindow"
xmlns="http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul">
<tabbox id="tbb" flex="1"><tabbrowser id="mytabbr" flex="1"/></tabbox>
<toolbarbutton id="testbutton" label="loadtab"
oncommand="document.getElementById('mytabbr').addTab('http://www.mozilla.org');"/>
</window>

2. register this file in the chrome-manager
3. check that you have javascript.options.showInConsole set to true (in
about:config)
3. start firefox; enter the chrome-url to the xul-file in the adress bar
(chrome://somepath/tabtest.xul); press enter
4. klick the loadTab button on the bottom of the xul-window
5. Open Tools - JavaScriptConsole and check the error messages
Actual Results:  
when clicking the "LoadTab" button a new sub-tab with the title of the requested
website is added but the website is NOT loaded. the javascript console shows the
following error:
Error: this.mTabBrowser.mProgressListeners has no properties
Source File: chrome://global/content/bindings/tabbrowser.xml
Line: 343

Expected Results:  
add the sub-tab, load the requested website in this sub-tab and don't show this
error

This problem still exists in Firefox Deer Park Alpha 2.

It also appears on a clean installation of Firefox without any extensions
installed and with a totally clean user profile.

Using Mozilla 1.7.8 the problem appears in a different way:
The requested website is loaded in a new sub-tab but when switching between the
sub-tabs  (which are sub-tabs of the browsertab with the xul-file) the same
error shows up in the JavaScript console:
Error: this.mProgressListeners has no properties
Source File: chrome://global/content/bindings/tabbrowser.xml
Line: 532


Another description of this bug can be found here:
http://mozdev.org/pipermail/project_owners/2004-October/003007.html

Comment 1

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Problem number one with this is that the tabbrowser binding doesn't work outside
of chrome, nor is it really expected to.

Note that we use this all over the place in Firefox chrome (lxr for
|gBrowser.addTab|, so there must be something wrong with the code you're using.

Comment 2

[bugreporter]

The code posted on this page is 100% correct (just have a short look at the 4
codelines posted in the description above). Note that it WORKS in the Mozilla
Suite (with the limitations described above) but it DOES NOT work with Firefox!

As Tabbed Browsing is one of the central functionalities of Firefox it SHOULD BE
accessible by developers. Have a look at the main xul-element reference for
xul-developers http://www.xulplanet.com/references/elemref/ref_tabbrowser.html

Comment 3

[Nickolay_Ponomarev]

Yes, tabbrowser requires those menuitems to be there. It's marked with XXX in the code:
 // XXXdwh temporary unclean dependency on specific menu items in navigator.xul

Comment 4

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

tabbrowser is going to be moved out of the browser and officially unsupported outside of chrome.  If you want sub-tabs, you can extend or replace the firefox tabbrowser widget with your own.