420251 - Can't input free-form text into <input type="file"> (e.g. for server to interpret as a URL)

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Igor Stepin]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.2; ru; rv:1.8.1.12) Gecko/20080201 Firefox/2.0.0.12
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.2; ru; rv:1.9b3) Gecko/2008020514 Firefox/3.0b3

In the current beta version Firefox3 (beta 3) for OS Windows XP mouse click on the input field activates an input file dialog. In the previous versions as well as in other main browsers, excepting Safari, there was a possibility to input a file name. 
We took this opportunity to input into the same field the file URL. This is to allow the user to use the same field (without switching) both the URL and local file.
Realization for FF2: file name is copied into the hidden field, in case the server doesn’t receive the file data the file name is taken for URL and the file is being downloaded from it.
The suggestion is to maintain the compatibility with FF2 and retain the old behavior.  


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open page with input type="file".
2. Click on text part of input field.
Actual Results:  
File open dialog opens.

Expected Results:  
Text input.

Comment 1

[Jesse Ruderman]

Don't do that.  That's not what <input type="file"> is for.  As you already noted, it doesn't work in Safari.  It's not compatible with any sane, secure implementation of <input type="file">.

Comment 2

[Jo Hermans]

Also note that manually editing the text itself, is disabled due to bug 258875. You have to use the file-picker to click on a file, not type its name & path.