63515 - [RFE] allow editing of text/plain files

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Core :: DOM: Editor, enhancement, P3)

Description

[timeless]

Currently editing text/javascript and html framesets is impossible.  However, 
composer is used by mozmail to edit emails, so it shouldn't be hard for us to 
edit plain text documents.

Loading a frameset in composer results in a complete load and then an error 
dialog which closes the composer window.

We should allow user override for this nonsense.  I often want to edit source a 
text/javascript file. Or a text/html framed file [we can edit pages which have 
iframes, but we can't edit pages which use framesets].

<!-- timeless dialog markup, please manually parse. -->
<dialog>
<title>This page is not text/html</title>
<p>The url you are editing %url is of type %mimetype which Composer does not 
know how to handle.  What would you like to do?
Edit it as <optionlist>
<option>text/plain</option>
<option>text/html</option>
...
</optionlist>.

If you do not wish to edit this file, you may click cancel.

<submit value="OK"><submit value="CANCEL"><submit value="HELP">
</dialog>

Another dialog for framesets would be nice:

<!-- timeless dialog markup, please manually parse. -->
<dialog>
<title>This document includes a frameset</title>
<p>The url you are editing %url includes a frameset which Composer does not 
know how to handle.  What would you like to do?
Edit the <optionlist type=radio>
<option>framed content</option>
<option>noframe inline content</option>
</optionlist>.

If you do not wish to edit this file, you may click cancel.

<submit value="OK"><submit value="CANCEL"><submit value="HELP">
</dialog>

Comment 1

[rubydoo123]

this is a dup of:

14156 (edit framesets)
29162 (edit single frame like in 4.x)

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 14156 ***

Comment 2

[timeless]

bug 29162 is unrelated.
This is not really a dupe of bug 14156 either because I want to be able to edit 
javascript or text files.

Comment 3

[rubydoo123]

you referenced framesets in your initial description -- so, framesets are not a 
request in this bug then. Tracking of frames editing will remain with bugs 14146 
and 29162 (which by the way is related to frame editing).

This bug will track just one issue, editing plaintext, if you want to open 
another bug to reflect a request for editing javascript, then please do so.

Simon, like the frameset editing bugs, this one will need to be tracked the same 
way, assigning to you for future consideration

Comment 4

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

No, please don't start making Mozilla a text editor. That way lies madness.

Comment 5

[Jesse Ruderman]

See also bug 47640.

Comment 6

[Simon Fraser [no longer active]]

Attachment: Diffs to mozilla/editor

Comment 7

[Simon Fraser [no longer active]]

I realized that enabling editor to edit text files should not be all that hard. 
With the supplied patch, editor tracks the MIME type of the document being 
edited, and treats various document types as text:

const char* const gSupportedTextTypes[] = {
+  "text/plain",
+  "text/css",
+  "text/xml",
+  "text/xsl",
+  "text/rdf",
+  "text/javascript",    // obsolete type
+  "application/x-javascript",
+  "application/vnd.mozilla.xul+xml",
+  "text/xul",           // obsolete type
+  NULL      // IMPORTANT! Null must be at end
+};

Files with these MIME types will thus be opened and edited as if they are text/
plain. To make saving work, I had to change some JS that assumes that editor is 
always saving text/html, by having the JS ask the editorShell for the MIME type 
of the document.

There are two issues remaining after these changes:
1. The composer UI needs to adapt to editing plain text files (lots of commands
   should be disabled). Bug 81120 filed.
2. The file picker on save needs to consult the MIME info service to get the
   appropriate file extension for saving, rather than hardcoding ".html", ".txt".
   Bug 81121 filed.

Comment 8

[bobj]

Rather than hardcoding the list of MIME types that get treated as plain text, 
can't we externalize this (e.g., in a .properties file or in prefs)? 

I'd also like to be able to edit .properties and .dtd files.

What happens with documents opened with "file:" URLs? 

Comment 9

[Simon Fraser [no longer active]]

Fixes checked in.

Comment 10

[James Baxter]

verified on 8-21 build