475353 - Redirect users back to where they came from on logging in if not explicitly logging in.

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(support.mozilla.org :: Knowledge Base Software, task, P1)

Description

[[:Cww]]

Currently once you log in and if you're a contributor, you get directed to the Contributor Home Page.  Because of bug 458680, you can be in the middle of posting to the forum or editing a wiki, get logged out and your next click forces you to log in without saving where you are.  It just sends you to the contributors home page.  Then it's just a lot of work to get back to where you were.

The back button doesn't work because the links on the cached version of the page don't lead you to the right place, you have to use the back button and then reload skipping cache (and change http to https if needed) or use forward-navigation to find the content you need.  This is also annoying if you're not logged in and you click edit this page or translate this page and you find yourself unable to complete the action and have to loop around.  

Most websites if they need to interrupt your action with a login page redirect you back to where you came from, we should, too.  This does NOT apply if the user EXPLICITLY clicks "Log In" in which case, sending to the Contributor Home Page may be expected.

Comment 1

[Laura Thomson :laura]

Got time for this one Eric?  If not push it out.  It annoys me too.

Comment 2

[David Tenser [:djst]]

This feels somewhat related but not quite: when you try to access a page as logged out, you get an error message about insufficient permissions. Why aren't we showing the login box then? If we did, it would be easy to separate the "explicit" logins (when you click Log in from the main menu) from the "log in to see a specific page" logins (when you log in from this access denied page).

Comment 3

[Paul Craciunoiu [:paulc]]

I may have affected this with bug 433425 (Contributors home page). I tried to perform redirect only when not explicitly logging in.
Did the redirect back to original page ever work?

I'll take it and look into it.

Comment 4

[Paul Craciunoiu [:paulc]]

I'm not sure how to reproduce. Testing URL:
http://support.mozilla.com/tiki-editpage.php?locale=en-US&page=*Common+issues+fixed+in+Firefox+3
.. redirects to the edit page after logging in. Can I get some steps to reproduce?

Comment 5

[Underpass]

Following https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=433425

I have been redirected here by David, so I can report what we are experiencing in the last days:

- Login to SUMO

- Click a link in an email message pointing to a page of the KB (e.g.
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Menu%20Reference)

- It opens a new tab but the SUMO platform doesn't recognize me as logged in
so

- I have to change the url from http:// to https://

- Now I'm in - at last

I have configured Firefox to delete cookies from support.mozilla.com on
closing.

Comment 6

[Paul Craciunoiu [:paulc]]

I see the problem. I'm not sure how to approach this so reassigning back to Eric.
Seems a http vs https issue indeed...
Eric, got any ideas?

Comment 7

[Chris Ilias [:cilias]]

Is bug 458680 the only way to reproduce this?

Comment 8

[[:Cww]]

(In reply to comment #7)
Maybe, I can test today.

Comment 9

[[:Cww]]

It's also possible that what I'm doing is that I'm clicking the login button from a forum thread because I can't post with my username and then I have to loop back and all the other other forum pages that I have open can't be simply refreshed and have to be re-navigated.

Comment 10

[Paul Craciunoiu [:paulc]]

Maybe there's a way to modify the caching so that it will work well with logged in vs logged out status on a page. Because, with caching disabled, this all works fine, right?

Comment 11

[E. Cooper [:ecooper]]

This happens because tiki-login_src.php will automatically set your "login from" to the "Contributor Home Page".

This can be resolved by using the same method tiki-editpage.php does for users who aren't logged in (click edit while not logged in to see what I mean), which does what David requests. 

This is a small change across a large amount of files, though.

(In reply to comment #0)
> Currently once you log in and if you're a contributor, you get directed to the
> Contributor Home Page.  Because of bug 458680, you can be in the middle of
> posting to the forum or editing a wiki, get logged out and your next click
> forces you to log in without saving where you are.  It just sends you to the
> contributors home page.  Then it's just a lot of work to get back to where you
> were.
> 
> The back button doesn't work because the links on the cached version of the
> page don't lead you to the right place, you have to use the back button and
> then reload skipping cache (and change http to https if needed) or use
> forward-navigation to find the content you need.  This is also annoying if
> you're not logged in and you click edit this page or translate this page and
> you find yourself unable to complete the action and have to loop around.  
> 
> Most websites if they need to interrupt your action with a login page redirect
> you back to where you came from, we should, too.  This does NOT apply if the
> user EXPLICITLY clicks "Log In" in which case, sending to the Contributor Home
> Page may be expected.

Comment 12

[Majken Connor [:Kensie]]

I'm noticing that there aren't many places to log in without "explicitly" logging in. If I'm on an article and want to see the comments or history for example I have to hit log in.

I'd like to suggest that unless you're on the home page you *always* get directed back to where you hit log in from.

Comment 13

[E. Cooper [:ecooper]]

(In reply to comment #12)
> I'm noticing that there aren't many places to log in without "explicitly"
> logging in. If I'm on an article and want to see the comments or history for
> example I have to hit log in.
> 
> I'd like to suggest that unless you're on the home page you *always* get
> directed back to where you hit log in from.

I believe this setting exists already in tiki.

Comment 14

[E. Cooper [:ecooper]]

(In reply to comment #12)
> I'm noticing that there aren't many places to log in without "explicitly"
> logging in. If I'm on an article and want to see the comments or history for
> example I have to hit log in.
> 
> I'd like to suggest that unless you're on the home page you *always* get
> directed back to where you hit log in from.

David do you have anything thoughts on comment 12?

Comment 15

[David Tenser [:djst]]

I can think of a couple of situations where you'd want to go back to the page you logged in from:

* You're about to post a new thread in the contributor forum, only to realize that you're logged out. This could be streamlined by adding a link that says "Log in to start a new discussion" at the top/bottom of the forum listing.
* You're reading a KB article and want to look at the submitted feedback. Not sure how that could be solved.

Are there other use cases? There is a balance to make between making sure contributors find their way to the contributor home page, and not getting in the way of the task they are trying to achieve.

For the sake of simplicity, the suggestion in comment 12 might be our best bet.

However, this will reduce the number of people that find their way to the contributor home page. Maybe a possible solution would be to create a separate post-login page saying something like:

---
Welcome, contributor! You are now logged in.

Visit the <Contributor Home Page> or go back to the <previously visited page>.
---

What do people think?

Comment 16

[David Tenser [:djst]]

Given the lack of a complete use case overview, let's implement the proposal in comment 12 in 1.0.2 and discuss other ideas to streamline the process for contributors outside of this bug.

Comment 17

[[:Cww]]

Here are the use cases I hit most often:
Replying to a forum thread
Trying to edit weekly common issues (the edit link is hidden if I'm not logged in)
Locking/deleting/editing a thread from the main forum page

One thing we can do is popup logins.  That is to say clicking login from NOT the home page will popup a new tab where you log in and the original tab then refreshes (and switches to https) and the new tab moves to CHP.

Comment 18

[E. Cooper [:ecooper]]

Attachment: "Go to group homepage only if login from default homepage" v1

This patch makes the "Go to group homepage only if login from default homepage" preference under Admin->General behave as it's intended (mirroring comment 12).

I tested this locally today and last week, and it seems to be working as intended. If the "Go to group homepage only if login from default homepage" is enabled, users are redirected to the group home page only from Firefox Support Home Page. All other logins will be redirected to the original referrer.

A note on the patch, I would rather not use stripos, but the locales in the URLs make things a bit difficult. It seemed like the most streamlined and functional means to check.

Since Laura is enjoying some time off, if someone feels capable of review, feel free to pick this up and review up.

Comment 19

[Laura Thomson :laura]

Comment on attachment 372395 [details] [diff] [review]
"Go to group homepage only if login from default homepage" v1

This wfm

Comment 20

[E. Cooper [:ecooper]]

r24428/r24431

I believe the preferences are already in place for this on staging. 

Comment 12 should be used for verifying while also making sure logging in isn't broken anywhere.

Comment 21

[Stephen Donner [:stephend] Not actively reading bugmail]

I'll file specific bugs as I encounter them (if I do).  I've been testing this on staging for the past 3 days or so, without issue.

Verified FIXED (also, it was tested before).