457497 - SM 2.0a1 does not follow commandline preferences

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(SeaMonkey :: Startup & Profiles, defect)

Description

[NoOp]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.17) Gecko/20080829 NOT Firefox/3.0 SeaMonkey/1.1.12
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.1.b1pre) Gecko/20080924175508 SeaMonkey/2.0a1

All previous versions of SM 1.1.x allow for the following command:

seamonkey -mail -browser

resulting in SeaMonkey opening the mail window first and the browser window second. SM 2.0a1 does not and ignores the cli order resulting in a browser window always opening first and then the mail window.



Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. From a terminal open seamonkey with the following command: ./seamonkey -mail - browser (or 'seamonkey -mail -browser' depending upon your system.

Actual Results:  
SeaMonkey opens a browser window first, then opens a mail window.

Expected Results:  
Open a mail window first and then a browser window.

Failure to follow the commandline (and or application start icon) preference order will have a user impact on existing 1.1.x users that have SeaMonkey set to open the mail window first. While the initial reaction may be that the problem is simply an irritant to an individual user, it is likely to become more than an irritant to commercial customers that have become accustom to having SeaMonkey open in this manner (mail then browser).

Comment 1

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

Confirmed by Neil's following statement on mozilla.dev.apps.seamonkey:
> Windows load asynchronously, so the windows generally appear in order of
> complexity. This means that if you try to open all the possible windows from
> the command line, you should see them open in roughly the same order every
> time. You should find that the order is Error Console, DOM Inspector, Composer,
> Message Compose, ChatZilla, Browser, Mail and News.
>
> In addition, SeaMonkey 2.0a1 always opens windows in the same order, while
> SeaMonkey 1.x always opened windows in the order in which they appeared on the
> command line. In this case the windows are always requested in the order Error
> Console, Message Compose, Composer, DOM Inspector, ChatZilla, Mail and News,
> Browser.

Whether this is intended behaviour (INVALID or WONTFIX) or worth reverting (to single-threading as in 1.1.x) I don't know.

Comment 2

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

P.S. IIUC suiterunner opens in the order -jsconsole -compose -edit -inspect -chat -mail -browser (including two switches I made up, and you didn't mention -addressbook) which means that the fact that the browser window appears before the mail/news window is entirely due to the latter needing more time to load.

Comment 3

[Karsten Düsterloh]

(In reply to comment #0)
> All previous versions of SM 1.1.x allow for the following command:
> 
> seamonkey -mail -browser

True.

> resulting in SeaMonkey opening the mail window first and the browser window
> second.

Wrong.

The order of commandline handler execution is undefined.
(Well, it's of course defined by order of code internally, but we don't and never did guarantee any specific order.)
On my Linux system, "even" 1.1.16 does always open browser windows before mailnews, as Tony correctly obeserves, 

(In reply to comment #2)
> due to the latter needing more time to load.

Marking WONTFIX, because we _could_ "fix" it by making window load sequentially, which would be a real UXPITA. ;-)

Comment 4

[NoOp]

Sorry, but on my linux systems (Ubuntu: hardy, intrepid, and jaunty) SM 1.1.16 'seamonkey -mail -browser' *does* open the mail window first and then the browser window first. Does the same on my Windows systems (WinXPPro and Win2KPro) and *all* of my customers systems. I suggest that your system may have other issues if 'seamonkey -mail -browser' does not work for you on 1.1.16.

The fact that the commands are not working in 2.x is a regression that will create considerable issues on existing customer commercial systems. If the user has to open a mail window first, then a browser window second, then they might as well just start Thunderbird first & Firefox second - problem solved.

Comment 5

[Karsten Düsterloh]

(In reply to comment #4)
> my linux systems (Ubuntu: hardy, intrepid, and jaunty) 

Kubuntu 8.04 LTS here, thus hardy.

> 'seamonkey -mail -browser' *does* open the mail window first and then the
> browser window

I tested 
  ./seamonkey -mail -compose -browser
The windows appear in the taskbar in the order compose-browser-mail, for both 1.1.16 and current SM2 trunk alike. After that, the window of the first commandline option gets the focus, which is mail in this case...





 first. Does the same on my Windows systems (WinXPPro and
> Win2KPro) and *all* of my customers systems. I suggest that your system may
> have other issues if 'seamonkey -mail -browser' does not work for you on
> 1.1.16.
> 
> The fact that the commands are not working in 2.x is a regression that will
> create considerable issues on existing customer commercial systems. If the user
> has to open a mail window first, then a browser window second, then they might
> as well just start Thunderbird first & Firefox second - problem solved.

Comment 6

[Karsten Düsterloh]

> After that, 
...
Ignore all text starting from here in the previous comment; it should have been deleted (for being wrong or irrelevant), but my mouse hand was faster'n my keyboard ones. ;-)

Comment 7

[NoOp]

OK. './seamonkey -mail -compose -browser' in 1.1.16 does have issues as you point out. However, I'm looking for ./seamonkey -mail and that does work  - please give that a try.

Comment 8

[NoOp]

Sorry, should have been:

However, I'm looking for './seamonkey -mail -browser'...