64598 - [RFE] What happened to Netscape 3/4's _MOZILLA_URL X property?

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 36925

(SeaMonkey :: UI Design, enhancement)

Description

[Colin Watson]

There's a program called browser-history (see
http://www.inria.fr/koala/colas/browser-history/) which allows people to
maintain an external history across all the different browsers they use, and
have it saved to ~/.browser-history/history-log.html where they can consult it
later and search it easily. It works by watching browser windows for X
properties containing the title and URL of the currently visible page.

According to the author, "all Unix versions" of Netscape support this; I can
verify that 4.76 still does, and I believe he wrote it for Netscape 3. Those
browsers set the X property _MOZILLA_URL of each window to the URL currently
being viewed in that window. However, this has got lost in Mozilla; I don't know
if it was ever done, but M18 no longer does this, and from a brief look at the
latest nightly it doesn't do so either. (Thus this is a product parity question.)

It's easy to verify by running xprop and clicking on a Mozilla window: if you
don't see the current URL anywhere in the output, this enhancement request is
still open. Ideally it should be in its own X property.

I've assigned this to the GTK widget because it seems to be the X-related
component most likely to be able to provide this, and because implementing it
there would mean that other browsers using gtkmozembed would get support for
this for free. However, I don't know the Mozilla code very well, nor do I know
if Mozilla's GTK code can do X-specific things; please reassign it if this isn't
the right place.

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

This should probably be in XP Apps.  Setting status to New, adding 4xp keyword

Comment 2

[timeless]

pavlov, is this yours?

Comment 3

[Blake Ross]

-> radha

Comment 4

[Radha on family leave (not reading bugmail)]

This should go to  pavlov or someone who owns the gtk code. I do not own any
X-specific code. There are  interfaces available in docshell and SH to get to
the current url.

Comment 5

[Radim Kubacki]

Seems to be duplicate as 36925. Please see my comment and respond to it if possible

Comment 6

[Adam Lock]

This bug has shades of bug 71270 in it - property enables spyware etc.

Personally I think there's nothing wrong with exposing the URL in a simple way
for other processes to discover, but it is debatable if this should go in the
widget impl. Embedders may have good reason not to expose this property.

Comment 7

[Colin Watson]

I can only say that it seems a shame to conflate the issue of spyware with that
of users wanting to follow Mozilla's history for their own purposes. It seems to
me like a poor reason to want to disable useful functionality, particularly when
a process capable of spying on X properties in Unix is also likely to be capable
of inspecting your cache directly.

Perhaps a pref (disabled by default) is appropriate if this is a concern.

Comment 8

[Adam Lock]

The issue of spyware has already been discussed to death in the other bug, but
the two bugs do share a common technical issue.

Comment 9

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Duplicate of "List current URL as an X property of the window"

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 36925 ***

Comment 10

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

marking verified as a duplicate.

if you decide to reopen this bug, please clarify why.

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