418606 - Copy links or text from Firefox 3 does not put HTML into clipboard as it did with Firefox 2

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 428096

(Firefox :: Shell Integration, defect)

Description

[Steve McMillen]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9b3) Gecko/2008020511 Firefox/3.0b3
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9b3) Gecko/2008020511 Firefox/3.0b3

In Firefox 2, when I copied text from the browser and pasted into a Thunderbird 2 compose window, I would get an HTML version of the text unless I selected "Paste w/o Formatting" from the Edit Menu. 

However, with Firefox 3 Beta 3 on Mac OS 10.5, I now get plain text pasted into Thunderbird compose windows, using the same steps.  I would also be able to paste the HTML into other applications with Firefox 2, these also paste as plain text.

I try the same thing with Firefox 3 Beta 3 on Windows XP and I am able to successfully copy HTML from Firefox 3 into Thunderbird Compose Windows.

This is true if I copy any HTML, including Hyperlinks.  The Hyperlink ends up being pasted in as plain text.   

Further, in Firefox 2, I used to be able to drag a tab and drop into my Thunderbird Compose window to create a hyperlink where the text was the page title.  In Firefox 3 Beta 3 on Mac OS 10.5, this now results in the URL as plain text being written into the compose window at the drop location.  The same is true if I drag a hyperlink from a web page (the URL is pasted in instead of the page title as a hyperlink)



Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
On Mac OS 10.5
1. In Firefox 3 Beta 3, browse to mozilla.org
2. Copy some HTML formatted text (e.g. "Seamonkey" under "Other Mozilla Software"
3. Open Thunderbird 2 and open a compose window
4. Put the cursor into the message body and choose Edit>Paste or Cmd-V
5. Observe the pasted results are plain text formatted
Actual Results:  
Pasted results are plain text formatted

Expected Results:  
Pasted results are an HTML Formatted hyperlink

Paste w/o formatting should continue to paste plain text for those who don't want the HTML markup.  But carrying the HTML markup along is really useful and hopefully something that's not going away :)

p.s. I'm tempted to set Severity to higher than Normal but I don't know how popular pasting contents of browsers as formatted text into other apps is; I have to assume relatively popular.  I know it is for me :)

p.p.s.  Sorry if this is Dup;  I search quite a bit and was surprised to not see what I thought was the same bug.

Comment 1

[Steve McMillen]

This is still happening on Beta 5.   This is a pretty bad loss of functionality from previous Firefox release.  Is this really going to go to release this way!!

Comment 2

[Egg Davis]

I confirm that this behavior persists in b5. I love FF3 so far, but this behavior is definitely a dealbreaker for me, as I use HTML copy/paste between FF and Thunderbird many times a day. I hope it gets resolved soon.

Thanks!

Comment 3

[John Lemon]

I'm disappointed that Firefox 3 was released for general use with such a glaring bug. This is causing me a great deal of hassle and I sure would like to see this corrected.

Also, I think the severity of this should be upped to Major.

Also, it looks like 440997 and 442510 are probably duplicate reports of the same problem.

Comment 4

[Jim Morris]

We have seen this issue when copying math equations from FireFox. Any math equation copied out of FireFox loses the HTML markup, which is required to properly render the Math in the destination application, such as MathType. We agree that the severity of this should be (at least) Major. 

Comment 5

[Egg Davis]

Problem remains in 3.0.1 -- major dealbreaker.

Comment 7

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

I'm not convinced this bug is a dupe of 428096. The reporter indicates this worked in Firefox 2, but as far as I know, Firefox 2 had the exact same problem (witness most of the other dupes of bug 428096 and bug 79864).

The problem described here sounds like a regression, but again, I'm fairly certain Firefox 2 (at least on the Mac) never actually had the described behaviour to begin with. Bug 442510 comment 2 confirms this.

Bug 440997, as described by comment 3, is a Windows-specific bug and therefore something completely different.

Steve, can you explain how you're getting formatted text in Firefox 2 when no one else is, and in the face of the existence of two Core bugs on the subject? :)

cl

Comment 8

[Al]

If you haven't voted for the duplicate of this bug (bug #428096), please do so.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/votes.cgi?action=show_user&bug_id=428096#vote_428096

I am hoping to raise the attention and importance of this issue and hopefully get the HTML, styl, rtf, img function of the Firefox clipboard finally fixed.

Thanks for helping.

Comment 9

[Steve McMillen]

Sorry for not replying for a while.  The messages were missed due to filters but that's not to say I don't care about this issue.  It is VERY important to me.

The combination that works with formatted copy and paste from Firefox 2.0.0.14 (and probably any version of 2.x) and Thunderbird 2.0.0.14 (and again, probably all 2.x Thunderbird) on Mac OS 10.5 (been working for me since 10.5.0).

Any other combination of Thunderbird and Firefox (3.x TBird + 2.x FF, 2.x TBird + 3.x FF, or 3.x of both) do not work.  Copy of formatted text and paste reduces to plain text on paste.

Interestingly, copy and paste from the same build of Firefox 2.x to TextEdit reduces to plain text as well.  So it would seem that FF 2.x and TBird 2.x have the magic combination of configuraiotn for how to get formatted text from one to the other.

My guess is that both apps needs to try to use standardized settings for how and what name they store their pasted formatted text to into the clipboard.

*A renewed plea...*  PLEASE PLEASE FIX THIS ISSUE.  As much as I hate may aspects of how Apple Mail handles HTML mail, I really want to return to Thunderbird and Firefox.

Comment 10

[Steve McMillen]

Btw: I Read bug 428096 and I agree this can be considered a dup of that.  The symptoms are exactly the same.

Comment 11

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

Steve, thanks for answering my question in comment 7. I'm not sure why Fx2 + Tb2 works (they're probably putting something on the clipboard that only the other understands), but the fact that Fx2 + anything else *doesn't* work does indeed confirm this was duped properly.