415794 - http://ftp should default to the same styling as ftp://* when the site has no set style

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Matt]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9b4pre) Gecko/2008020504 Minefield/3.0b4pre
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9b4pre) Gecko/2008020504 Minefield/3.0b4pre

It seems that there is a basic consistency issue in Firefox in that ftp://* sites have a nice default styling done by Firefox, but not http://ftp.* sites. I understand that its different with http:// sites because they can choose the styling of the ftp page, however for the most part this isn't the case (just see http://ftp.mozilla.org for an example). If a site chooses not to style a page, the default styling should be the same as a ftp:// url.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
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Comment 1

[Elmar Ludwig]

Hm, so you are saying we shouldn't display the HTML returned by the server but something else? Besides, I see no way to reliably determine if a site "chooses not to style a page", whatever that may mean.

Comment 2

[Matt]

Yea good point, I more meant that if it doesn't have a CSS then implement a default page style onto it. But I realize how this could mess stuff up.

Comment 3

[Lucas Malor (mail: c6kfnkn2uc AT snkmail DOT c0m)]

I don't think it's a good idea. First, because they are html pages, so the structure can change from site to site, even if they have no CSS. Also CSS can be contained in HTML source code, unluckily. 
Second, because it's not sure ftp.something.dom contains an ftp-like page. It's only a not official convention. 

I suggest you to use Stylish ( http://userstyles.org/ ) and Firebug ( http://getfirebug.com/releases/firebug/1.2/ ) to develop an your own style for http://ftp.* pages. Anyway, I suggest you to change the resolution of this bug to WONTFIX.

Comment 4

[Tanner M. Young [:tmyoung]]

Since the connection outputs HTML, Firefox would need to parse the HTML and reformat it, but the output of http://ftp.* site cannot be guaranteed as consistent, and if someone has formatted their http://ftp.* to look better than the default directory listing, this would break that.

It would be unfair and unwise for Firefox to change the output of a server as its default behavior.  However, I would recommend filing bugs with the major server companies, like Apache, and recommend they improve the default output for the http://ftp.* sites.

Comment 5

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2]]

As said, it's not useful and even not possible. FTP is a totally different protocol. We should not try to do those changes. Marking as verified wontfix.