421455 - using web-page favicon as window-icon only works for the main web-app-prism window

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Mozilla Labs :: Prism, defect)

Description

[Bernd Mueller]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; iOpus-I-M; Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1) ; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727)
Build Identifier: prism-09.en-US.win32.exe

Prism only looks for favicons on the main page.
That image is then used for all newly opened windows and the desktop shortcut.

Pages opened out of the main window should become the icon from the opener window OR, if the opened wep-page has it's own belonging favicon prism should use this as the window icon.

This is both not working in prism 0.9 (win32) trunk version at the moment. 

This feature will make it possible to distinguish them on first sight when minimized to the task bar. This IMHO is necessarily to support web-apps using undependend popup windows, e.g. main-app-win, email-client-win, ...

For me, it's a important and major feature which is broken ...

Thanks and Regards...
Bernd



Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Create Web-App with option "use image from web", startpage must hava a favicon
2. open new web-page window out of startpage. This web-page should indeed have it' own favicon
3. Look at the window icons ;)



see Details

Comment 1

[Fredrik Larsson (:nossralf)]

This is by design. If you have multiple Firefox windows open, for example, you don't get different icons shown in the task bar for each window, they are identical. Because it's the same application. (That goes for pop-up windows as well, by the way.)

Prism interprets each newly opened window as being part of the web application itself. Which means using the same icon is in line with what regular applications do.

What the favicon is defined to be for a page on a site has no bearing on what icon you've chosen to adorn your web application. That Prism offers to use the site favicon is for convenience, since it's a visual link you're probably used to seeing. Other than that, favicons matter as much to the window icon as they do on any other web browser (that is to say, not at all).

Comment 2

[Bernd Mueller]

@Frederic: you are right ... but this on user sight of view ... this is a not user-friendly limitation of the tradinional browsers.
When using tabbed-browsing ... favivons are displayed in the tab-register on the top which is beautiful for convenience :)

>Prism interprets each newly opened window as being part of the web application
>itself. Which means using the same icon is in line with what regular
>applications do.

This is not working in prism 0.9 trunk ... newly opened windows icon is another one :(

To bring desktop-feeling in using web-apps to the user ... window handling and manipulation (title, icon, ...) should be better and like real desktop-apps does. IMHO this is key-point ans goal for users in using ssb's and not using traditional browsers.

Thanks and Regards ...
Bernd

Comment 3

[Fredrik Larsson (:nossralf)]

(In reply to comment #2)
> When using tabbed-browsing ... favivons are displayed in the tab-register on
> the top which is beautiful for convenience :)

Indeed, but the usual design pattern is to have the same icon for a whole site/domain. Since Prism by default restricts content to the same domain, it's a reasonable trade-off to always use the same icon. (Very few applications use different icons for various top-level windows, because that will ultimately confuse the user as to which window belongs to which application. Graphical hints are much more powerful than textual ones such as window titles.)
 
> >Prism interprets each newly opened window as being part of the web application
> >itself. Which means using the same icon is in line with what regular
> >applications do.
> 
> This is not working in prism 0.9 trunk ... newly opened windows icon is another
> one :(

It's the intended behavior in any case. Window icons and XULRunner aren't the best of friends.

> To bring desktop-feeling in using web-apps to the user ... window handling and
> manipulation (title, icon, ...) should be better and like real desktop-apps
> does. IMHO this is key-point ans goal for users in using ssb's and not using
> traditional browsers.

Good point. But there is (currently) a distinction between what is fundamentally a web application and the "fat" application features an SSB presents to said web application. It's dangerous to start reinterpreting the semantics of the DOM-related APIs (window.open() for example) in an application such as Prism. That's why we have bug 420661, which will hopefully lead to a content-accessible JavaScript API that allows for tighter integration with the host platform.

Comment 4

[Bernd Mueller]

But i really see the need of that.

Usal design patterns ? From who ? From the browser manufacturer ?
What really cares ... they are nor handy.

The lack of os dependant desktop-integration of the traditional browsers
should be addressed by prism. This is the goal of the project if i understand
correctly.

Please make the behavior customizable.
I am sure i am not the only one you will benefit on that.


IMHO prism should use defined transformational rules how web-standards (<title>,
<favicon>, window.open() ... js-alert(..), ...) should transformed on the
prism/ssb-app/desktop-representation side. Maby on prism side those transformational rules can be configured to address special needs.

Bug 421457 also has to do with better prism-window handling:
newly opened windows don't take care of title, width, height, top, left, ...
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=421455

Comment 5

[Matthew Gertner]

I agree with Fredrik. Prism apps should have the same behavior as standard apps for that operating system. If you feel strongly about this and want to submit a patch for review, please reopen and post your patch.