687124 - Closing all browser windows prevents Chatzilla from opening links

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Other Applications Graveyard :: ChatZilla, defect)

Description

[Wesley W. Garland]

In older versions of Firefox/Chatzilla, you could close all browser windows, leaving Chatzilla open, but when you clicked on an http:// link in ChatZilla, it would pop up a new browser window and go to the link.

Now if you close all browser windows but leave Chatzilla running, you're pretty much hosed -- you can't open any links by clicking on them, and there is no other mechanism to open a browser window, so you have to shut down ChatZilla, and then re-launch Firefox so that you can surf the web again.

This is a major UX failure!

I suspect is brought on by the change where instead of opening a new window you guys just shoot clicked-on links into a tab.

Comment 1

[James Ross]

This is a regression from bug 656105.

Comment 2

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

(In reply to Wesley W. Garland from comment #0)
[...]
> Now if you close all browser windows but leave Chatzilla running, you're
> pretty much hosed -- you can't open any links by clicking on them, and there
> is no other mechanism to open a browser window, so you have to shut down
> ChatZilla, and then re-launch Firefox so that you can surf the web again.
[...]
Well, at least on SeaMonkey there is a "Window" menu in Chatzilla, with menuitems "Browser", "Mail & Newsgroups", "Composer", "Address Book" and even "IRC Chat" (the latter does nothing since we're already in cZ).

If you start Firefox while ChatZilla-in-Firefox is still running, by typing

   firefox -url http://some.site.com/somepage.html

at the (bash, cmd.exe or Terminal.app) command-line, with http:// and what follows being optained by copy-paste, does it reopen a browser window in the same instance of Firefox which is already running ChatZilla? I would expect it to.

Comment 3

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

Oh, and what about right-clicking the link, then "Open Link in New Window" ?

Comment 4

[James Ross]

Is this still an issue in ChatZilla 0.9.88.2?

Comment 5

[Donald Sarratt]

(In reply to James Ross from comment #4)
> Is this still an issue in ChatZilla 0.9.88.2?

I think this was an issue with a particular version of Firefox, either way I haven't seen this problem for several months now.