340749 - Need a way to do an openURI that can't be retargeted

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Core Graveyard :: Embedding: APIs, enhancement)

Description

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

Currently, in order to invisibly parse an HTML page into a DOM document object, you have to:

1. download the content of the page (via f.e. XMLHttpRequest);
2. stick the content of the page into a data: URL;
3. create a hidden iframe (perhaps with JavaScript and other features disabled);
4. create a channel from the data: URL with the LOAD_BACKGROUND flag set;
5. call nsIURILoader::OpenURI, passing it the channel and the iframe's docShell.

Following this procedure prevents accidental display of the "download" dialog box (if your HTML page turns out to have a content type you weren't expecting), may have negligible impact on UI responsiveness (still in the process of testing this), and may prevent the cursor from changing into the busy cursor (still testing this, too).  But it's a painful way to obtain these benefits.

There should be an better way to do this.

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

So how is this different from bug 102699?

Or is this a bug about avoiding the "download" dialog?  We should definitely have an API on URILoader to allow that....

Comment 2

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

(In reply to comment #1)
> So how is this different from bug 102699?

Hmm, you're right, this bug, as currently stated, is the same as bug 102699.

> Or is this a bug about avoiding the "download" dialog?  We should definitely
> have an API on URILoader to allow that....

We can morph it to be that bug.

Comment 3

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

-> me, unless someone else wants it :)

Comment 4

[Hixie (not reading bugmail)]

XMLHttpRequest's .responseDocument should just support text/html, IMHO.

Comment 5

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

this bug is now unrelated to XMLHttpRequest, implementing this new summary is useful independent of whether XMLHttpRequest supports text/html.

Comment 6

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

bug 384941 adds an openURIWithFlags function to which you can pass nsIURILoader::DONT_RETARGET

Comment 7

[Dave Camp (:dcamp)]

Attachment: add openURIWithFlags to URILoader

That bug doesn't have that change anymore, but I've separated it out into a separate patch.

Comment 8

[Benjamin Smedberg]

Marking a bunch of bugs in the "Embedding: APIs" component INCOMPLETE in preparation to archive that component. If I have done this incorrectly, please reopen the bugs and move them to a more correct component as we don't have "embedding" APIs any more.