469280 - Please enable drag and drop support for the 'file' input field

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 399917

(Core :: Layout: Form Controls, defect)

Description

[Brett]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008101315 Ubuntu/8.10 (intrepid) Firefox/3.0.3
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008101315 Ubuntu/8.10 (intrepid) Firefox/3.0.3

In Firefox 2.0, the user, when working with the "file" field  (think "Browse" button), was able the copy, edit or paste the path of a file. In Firefox 3.0, this option was removed so that the entire bar is highlighted and acts as the "Browse" button when clicked.

I propose to re-add the ability to copy, paste or edit the menu path and add a new feature: allow the dragging and dropping of files from Windows Explorer or Nautilus into the "name" input field. Nautilus should be easy to support because the file path is actually a URI (e.g. file:///home/brett/Desktop/test.txt -- try it: copy a file in Nautilus and paste it into a text editor) 


This is the HTML to the field that I am speaking of:

<form action="" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data" accept-charset="UTF-8">
    <input size="20" type="file"  />
</form>

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Use Firefox 3.0
2.Go to a form that allows attachments or the uploading of files
3.(a)Try to edit, copy or paste the file path
  (b)Try to drag and drop a file to the input field
Actual Results:  
You can not edit, copy or paste the file path and dragging and dropping does not work.

Expected Results:  
The ability to edit, copy or paste a file path and to drag and drop from a file browser to a "file" input field from a file browser such as Windows Explorer or Nautilus.

Comment 2

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

Upduping, I tested for the possibility to invoke the context menu, but the possibility to tab to the field and to paste a path to a file failed earlier. So I'll search for it when I have more time. Sorry.

Comment 3

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

I think I found it. 
The feature was removed per bug 258875 so this is possibly a duplicate of Bug 345195. So if you think it is a duplicate can you resolve this bug as such?

Comment 4

[Brett]

I apologize, the first two can be considered parents to this bug.

Can we remove all duplicate information and turn this into a "Please enable drag and drop support for the 'file' input field (specifically Nautilus, Windows Explorer, etc)" bug?

Comment 5

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

Of course; the people in bug 345195 will decide if it also covers drag and drop and if it will be fixed.

Comment 6

[Karl Tomlinson (:karlt)]

Is this a duplicate of bug 50660?
See also bug 399917.

Comment 7

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

I assume this is talking about dropping text, not files.  So not bug 50660.  Pretty definitely bug 399917, though.