305547 - "File/Import" Import Wizard is useless under Linux

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 295683

(Firefox :: Menus, defect)

Description

[Rob Smith]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050813 Firefox/1.0.4 (Debian package 1.0.4-2sarge2)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050813 Firefox/1.0.4 (Debian package 1.0.4-2sarge2)

You select "File/Import." An Import Wizard box pops up, asking you to import
"Settings and Data From." The box is pretty much blank, except for buttons at
the bottom. When you click the "Next" button, nothing happens.

I am attempting to import my IE Favorites, which I have copied to a file in my
home directory.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.In the "File" menu, select "Import..."
2. The Import Wizard box which opens, only gives you the options "Cancel" and
Next." Select "Next."
3. Nothing further happens at this point.

Actual Results:  
As mentioned above, nothing!

Expected Results:  
You should then be queued for a source from which to import, like a directory.

I am expecting that I should be able to import my M$ IE Favorites, in their
existing hierarchy, into Mozilla Firefox on my SimplyMEPIS loaded laptop PC.

Comment 1

[Nick Thomas [:nthomas] (UTC+12)]

The Firefox migration wizard can import from browsers on the same platform, so
IE doesn't work. The functionality you are looking for is in the Bookmarks
Manager (Bookmarks menu, Bookmarks Manager) under File, Import.

Comment 2

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

The Import Wizard should be disabled for Linux if it can't import anything.
(morphing this bug because it's by design that you can't import IE settings
under Linux, use the impport from the Bookmarks instead as comment #1 suggested)

Comment 3

[Rob Smith]

[e-mail] wrote:
The Firefox migration wizard can import from browsers on the same platform, so
IE doesn't work. The functionality you are looking for is in the Bookmarks
Manager (Bookmarks menu, Bookmarks Manager) under File, Import.

I tried that, but it only wants to see ".HTML" documents, not ".URL" (IE 
Internet Shortcut) files. That's broken too!

Is there any way, short of opening over 500 web pages, bookmarking them, and 
then recreating my entire file hierarchy and organizing it, that I can 
accomplish this?

[e-mail] wrote:
"File/Import" Import Wizard is useless under Linux.

If it is useless, it is broken. If it is not meant to work, then why is it 
there?

Comment 4

[Nick Thomas [:nthomas] (UTC+12)]

Rob, if you still have access to your favorites under windows then I suggest you
start up IE and select File menu > Import and Export > Next > Export Favorites.
That will create an html file for you to import into Firefox (using the
Bookmarks Manager). If not, I'm sure I can help you translate the odd way IE
handles favorites to something that Firefox can import. Let's do that by email
since bugzilla is not the place for tech support. As Matti says, it's by design
that Firefox does not try to import IE settings on Linux.

Matti, if I'm reading the code correctly Firefox supports profile import from
the Mozilla Suite, Netscape 4.x and Opera on UN*X. If the user has never run
those apps then the migrator is skipped on first startup; when run manually the
the migration dialog will be empty (nothing to migrate!). The empty dialog is
the only bug I see here so your morphing this bug was incorrect.

Comment 5

[Marc Chamberlin]

(In reply to comment #2)
> The Import Wizard should be disabled for Linux if it can't import anything.
> (morphing this bug because it's by design that you can't import IE settings
> under Linux, use the impport from the Bookmarks instead as comment #1 suggested)
> 

I have to agree with Nick, comment #4, morphing this bug was the wrong thing to do. The fact is this problem extends beyond simply wanting to import from IE and has other ramifications which should have been thought about before making such  a decision. I, for example, wanted to import my bookmarks from another instance of Firefox residing on another computer within my network. Therefore, the scope of this problem and its resolution should not have been simply confined to importing from IE but to whether the model of import behaviours is correct in general. The inability to use the Import Wizard IS a failure because it has made some tightly constrained assumptions about when it is valid to be used, these assumptions were very poorly thought out, and the user was given no reason/information as to indicate why a failure occurred. Presenting the user with an inoperable dialog box does NOT guide him/her to a satisfactory solution, to the problem he/she was trying to solve, and IS a catastropnic failure of any GUI.

Comment 6

[Ian Jackson]

This would appear to be a duplicate of 117844.

Comment 7

[Nick Thomas [:nthomas] (UTC+12)]

I don't think so. Bug 117844 is an old bug regarding Import into the Mail part of the Suite (http://lxr.mozilla.org/mozilla1.8/source/mailnews/import/), which may or may not affect Thunderbird. This bug is about Firefox's importer (http://lxr.mozilla.org/mozilla1.8/source/browser/components/migration/), which happens to display the same empty dialog when there are no import sources.

Comment 8

[Nick Thomas [:nthomas] (UTC+12)]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 295683 ***