316163 - Unable to install additional dictionaries using Internet Explorer

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Thunderbird :: Preferences, defect)

Description

[Victor Letoh]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8) Gecko/20051107 Firefox/1.5
Build Identifier: Thunderbird version 1.6a1 (20051111)

On my clean Windows XP SP2 test system I installed Thunderbird v1.6a1.
In "Tools | Options | Composition | Spelling" I select "download more dictionaries". Since it's a clean system, Internet Explorer is used to download the .xpi file, and doesn't know how to handle this extension, so it only can save it somewhere on disk. And then ? No dictionary is installed. I guess it ends here for 99% of the end users.

You might argue that you should never use IE, but IMHO Thunderbird should anticipate on users that still use M$ or other third party stuff.
I suggest that some kind of help is provided in the same tab where you can download more dictionaries, in case the dictionary did not install automatically (e.g. explain how to install a .xpi file from disk).

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install Thunderbird on a clean XP system.
2. Select more dictionaries from "Tools | Options | Composition | Spelling" 
3. IE cannot handle .xpi file and saves it to disk.


Actual Results:  
Thunderbird starts the default browser, and gives the installation process out of hands. In case IE is used, the installation of dictionaries stops here.

Expected Results:  
Install the dictionary successfully.
Or provide help in the tab when installation did not work.

Comment 1

[Adam Guthrie]

Even if you were using Firefox, you still wouldn't be able to install a Thunderbird dictionary from within Firefox. You would still need to download the xpi file to your HDD, then drag it into Thunderbird's extension manager, or choose to install it from Tools > Extensions.