349865 - Drop "Copy Link Location" from mailto: link context menu

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: Menus, enhancement)

Description

[Steven Garrity [:sgarrity]]

If you right-click on an email link (with a "mailto:" in the href), there are a two variations of the copy command available:

 1. Copy Email Address
 2. Copy Link Location

Copying the email address does what you would expect, putting "[e-mail]" in the clipboard. The Copy Link Location copies the contents of the "href" attribute, putting something like "mailto:[e-mail]" in the clipboard.

I'm finding it a bit difficult to imagine a situation in which one would want to copy the link location for an email link. If there is something I'm missing, please let me know.

The only argument I could think of for this was consistency with other links - though I'm not sure it's a strong point.

Can we scrap the Copy Link Location in mailto: links?

Bug #102418 covered this for the old Mozilla suite.

Comment 1

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

When I paste mailto:[e-mail] into the location bar it starts up my e-mail client I guess.

Comment 2

[Mike Goodspeed]

If I'm looking for a job and somewhere on monster says "click here to
apply" where that hyperlink is a mailto: like the following, it makes
sense (at least for me).

href="mailto:[e-mail]?subject=Senior Astrophysical
Thermohydrologist&body=I would like to apply for this job.  I have
attached my resume for your review."

Since I use gmail, when I click on that link, it doesn't go to my
email client of choice (bug? extension request?).  I need to make sure
I spell "Senior Astrophysical Thermohydrologist" correctly so they
even look at the email, and if they request that the body of my email
look exactly like that, then I need to copy it just like it is.

So it's useful to me, but I'm aware I might be the 1% that uses it and
the menu item still might be ripe for removal.

~Mike

Comment 3

[(no longer active)]

The use case in comment 2 can still be met by selecting Properties from the context menu, and copying all (or parts) of the Address field.  I would argue that it's even better, since it makes sure you're only copying the parts you want (for example, only the subject of the email.)

Taking over...

Comment 4

[(no longer active)]

Attachment: Patch (v1)

Simple fix.

Comment 5

[Johnathan Nightingale [:johnath]]

Comment on attachment 295548 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch (v1)

Cancelling ui-review request.  I ui-r on security stuff only, I recommend asking mconnor or beltzner for ui reviews the rest of the time.

Comment 6

[(no longer active)]

Comment on attachment 295548 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch (v1)

Asking mano for review because this has been stuck in gavin's queue for a long time

Comment 7

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

Comment on attachment 295548 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch (v1)

r=me, but ui-r is what's important here.

Comment 8

[(no longer active)]

(In reply to comment #7)
> (From update of attachment 295548 [details] [diff] [review])
> r=me, but ui-r is what's important here.

Thanks for the review, gavin.  Now, let's see what Beltzner thinks.

Comment 9

[(no longer active)]

Beltzner: ping...

Comment 10

[Mike Beltzner [:beltzner, not reading bugmail]]

Comment on attachment 295548 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch (v1)

Yes, definitely.

Comment 11

[(no longer active)]

Comment on attachment 295548 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch (v1)

This is a low-risk change which fixes a UI polish issue.  Requesting approval to land this.

Comment 12

[Mike Beltzner [:beltzner, not reading bugmail]]

Comment on attachment 295548 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch (v1)

a=beltzner for 1.9

Comment 13

[Reed Loden [:reed]]

Checking in browser/base/content/nsContextMenu.js;
/cvsroot/mozilla/browser/base/content/nsContextMenu.js,v  <--  nsContextMenu.js
new revision: 1.36; previous revision: 1.35
done

Comment 14

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2]]

Verified with:

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.4; en-US; rv:1.9b4pre) Gecko/2008022504 Minefield/3.0b4pre ID:2008022504

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9b4pre) Gecko/2008022504 Minefield/3.0b4pre

Comment 15

[Nicolas Barbulesco]

My request bug 678927 is about "Copy link address", which is missing.
Even if "Copy email address(es)" becomes perfect and copies 10 email addresses, that will not give me the link address. I want to copy the link address, like for any normal link. With "mailto:" and the email addresses and the subject and whatever. Web browsers have been providing that simple feature for 10 years. Please bring it back. Thanks.

I particularly miss this feature because sometimes the link address is not fully shown although there is plenty of space : bug 658918.

And here is another scenario where the user wants the whole link :
The user wants to paste it in a place where it has to be a whole "mailto:" link, like an HTML page the user is writing.

Regarding the "Properties" way (bug 349865, comment 3) :

In Firefox 3.0.1, I have "Properties" in the contextual menu and then I have the link address in the properties. This is less handy than the "Copy link address" contextual menu item, but this is a good idea.
But in more recent version of Firefox, I don't have any "Properties" contextual menu item.

Comment 16

[Nicolas Barbulesco]

Let's suppose I want to compose the email with the subject and everything, but not now, because my email program is not ready yet (I am downloading it, or installing it, or tweaking it…).
I don't click on the "mailto:" link. Instead, I right-click : copy its address. And when ready, I "paste and go" in my navigator, and the email gets composed.