306128 - Should Thunderbird have a unique rv user agent substringa

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Description

[Scott MacGregor]

From: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=305963#c7

Here's my thing: we want the rv: 1.8 substring in the comment in the user-agent
to mean a certain set of web features.  If Thunderbird's UA is distinct enough,
then I'm happy.  If we believe its rv: should differ from Firefox's on account
of SVG and MathML being disabled in Thunderbird, then how would we distinguish
rv: best?

/be

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

I have to wonder; why is it a good idea to be able to "send page" in Firefox and
then have Thunderbird not be able to show it?

Comment 2

[Doug Wright]

It's my understanding that

1) Every version of Thunderbird has had this 'problem' of having part(s) of
gecko used by Firefox/Suite disabled. It's not new.
2) No-one has filed a bug yet complaining about this, indicating that it's not a
problem on the web (how many blogs and emails use SVG or MathML?)
3) By the time SVG (or MathML!) becomes a significant format on the web,
Thunderbird will have almost certainly reached 2.0 and will have an equal Gecko
to Firefox due to being xulrunnered (and will have gained that extra filesize
mentioned in bug 205963)
4) There's a patch awaiting review now, to add SVG to the HTTP accept header if
the current build supports it - that should be enough for authors if the problem
does arise in the meantime.

Comment 3

[Brendan Eich [:brendan]]

Yeah, I think we will wait for XULRunner to fix this.  Someone mark dependent or
something....

/be

Comment 4

[M.J.G.]

With TB 2.0 coming up without Xulrunner: Is TB 2.0 going to come with MathML? TeX/LaTeX syntax is used in e-Mails and RSS feeds for mathematicians. I intend to write an extension which displays TeX/LaTeX fragments in FF and TB, so MathML in TB would be most welcome. Without MathML I would use a different engine - this would not quite promote the use of MathML, though.

Michael

Comment 5

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

There's another consideration about this: that "rv:something" part of the UA is the only part which gives an easy-to-spot "core version", i.e., a version number for the code common to Firefox, Thunderbird and SeaMonkey, and thus easily usable, for instance, to determine the correct "blocking-1.9?" or similar flag on BMO bugs pertaining to the Core (and perhaps also Mailnews Core) component.

WONTFIX?

Comment 6

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

I think that given that:

1) Thunderbird has been moving a bit more towards core,
2) The differences in the code are relatively small compared to the size of the code base, especially when it comes to rendering,
3) and in the user agent there is a clear statement that Thunderbird (or Shredder) is the actual app in play here

Then I agree we should wontfix this - I'd like to see what Dan thinks as well though.

Comment 7

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

This bug was filed because of huge differences in rendering: lack of SVG and MathML.  If Thunderbird now includes those, great.  If not, the lack of SVG really means that the core is so different from stock Gecko, especially as we try to have more SVG in extensions, etc, that this bug should be fixed instead.

I would prefer Thunderbird just enable SVG and MathML, of course.  Is there a good reason they're disabled to start with?

Comment 8

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Thunderbird SVG was turned on in bug 366126, but MathML isn't yet it seems - http://mxr.mozilla.org/comm-central/source/mail/confvars.sh#42

I agree we should wontfix this an just enable MathML too.

Comment 9

[Dan Mosedale (:dmosedale, :dmose)]

I imagine the original motivation was to slim down footprint.  Since we're moving towards a libxul world, we eventually won't even get the option of turning off MathML, so we could certainly do that sooner rather than later in order to WONTFIX this bug.  It would be interesting to know what the footprint hit of MathML is.

Comment 10

[Dan Mosedale (:dmosedale, :dmose)]

Actually, I bet I'm wrong and that we could, in fact, even turn off MathML in a libxul world, assuming we continue to build our own libxul.

Comment 11

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

(In reply to comment #10)
> Actually, I bet I'm wrong and that we could, in fact, even turn off MathML in a
> libxul world, assuming we continue to build our own libxul.

That's correct, its not until the xulrunner world that we're forced to have the same build config.

Comment 12

[Dan Mosedale (:dmosedale, :dmose)]

At one point, I was under the impression from something that bsmedberg said that it actually made more sense for us to use libxul indefinitely, and never actually go to xulrunner.  I'm not sure of the reasoning behind that, and it's possible that I'm just confused.  Benjamin, is my recollection consistent with reality?

Comment 13

[Benjamin Smedberg]

libxul is the big goal. Getting onto an actual xulrunner is comparatively minor.

You could turn off MathML or SVG... I just really don't think you should.

Comment 14

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Filed bug 456014 for thunderbird mathml support.

Comment 15

[Philip Chee]

MathML is now enabled since bug 456014 landed. => WONTFIX.