730657 - browser.chrome.tooltips.attrlist.enabled preference does not sync

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox :: Sync, defect)

Description

[Lindsay Smart]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:10.0.2) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/10.0.2
Build ID: 20120216115113

Steps to reproduce:

While Firefox Sync was enabled on my desktop I changed the preference "browser.chrome.tooltips.attrlist.enabled" to "true".


Actual results:

On my laptop, which also has Firefox Sync enabled, the preference "browser.chrome.tooltips.attrlist.enabled" remained set to "false".


Expected results:

The preference "browser.chrome.tooltips.attrlist.enabled" should have changed to "true" on my laptop.

Comment 1

[Lindsay Smart]

Note that this preference does not exist by default, but I'm not aware of any reason why that would mean it shouldn't be synced.

Comment 2

[Richard Newman [:rnewman]]

Prefs are whitelisted, not blacklisted.

Comment 3

[Gregory Szorc [:gps]]

To sync this pref, define the pref "services.sync.prefs.sync.browser.chrome.tooltips.attrlist.enabled" to "true" and it will be whitelisted. You can define this in your local profiles and it will just work.

Now, the larger question is whether this should be default behavior. That change is trivial: add a pref in firefox.js (https://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/app/profile/firefox.js#940) (and other apps, of course).

Is this something we can just add or do we need buy-in from whoever "owns" the pref?

Comment 4

[Richard Newman [:rnewman]]

(In reply to Gregory Szorc [:gps] from comment #3)

> Is this something we can just add or do we need buy-in from whoever "owns"
> the pref?

Need to make sure it's safe to write arbitrarily, and that any code that uses it has an observer to see when it changes and behave accordingly. Best to check with whoever owns it.

Comment 5

[Daniel Veditz [:dveditz]]

I can't find any code that references that pref, no evidence that it exists. Checked with AMO-hosted addons, too (though a very stale copy).

Comment 6

[Daniel Veditz [:dveditz]]

There's a "browser.chrome.toolbar_tips" -- is that what you wanted?

Comment 7

[(mostly gone) XtC4UaLL [:xtc4uall]]

The Pref "browser.chrome.tooltips.attrlist.enabled" is mentioned on http://piro.sakura.ne.jp/xul/_popupalt.html.en#secret and thus related to the "Popup ALT Attributes" Extension.

Available on AMO: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/popup-alt-attribute/

Comment 8

[Richard Newman [:rnewman]]

If it's an addon's pref, or the addon has assumed de facto ownership of an oooold pref, then I'll resolve this, and leave it to the addon author to follow this guide:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Firefox_Sync/Syncing_custom_preferences