752333 - Share Thunderbird's about:support implementation with SeaMonkey

Status: NEW

(SeaMonkey :: General, enhancement)

Description

[rsx11m]

Bug 545110 added the Help > Troubleshooting Information function to SeaMonkey, so did bug 548041 for Thunderbird. However, the Thunderbird version has some important extensions that should be available for SeaMonkey as well:

 - addition of obfuscated SMTP, IMAP & POP settings
 - ability to e-mail the troubleshooting page
 - availability of the Build ID (in light of bug 588909 and bug 589444)

Given that Thunderbird adds further account types for Instant Messaging and external file-storage support, now would be a good time to take a snapshot of their mail/news-specific implementation and add it to SeaMonkey, also to be less dependent on Toolkit what they are willing to add to this page.

Comment 1

[Philip Chee]

The problem with this is that someone then needs to keep porting changes from toolkit, also this will make three forks. Better to try rolling the TB enhancements into the toolkit implementation.

Comment 2

[rsx11m]

Well, for the Build ID part (bug 589444) there isn't much enthusiasm coming from the Toolkit community already, thus I'm not having much hope that they would be willing to accommodate any extensions specific to the mail and news settings.

It may be easier to move the Thunderbird implementation to MailNews Core so that SeaMonkey can benefit from it, thus avoiding that 3rd branch. That would be the mail/components/about-support code added in bug 624108 and any follow-up patches.

Comment 3

[Justin Wood (:Callek)]

(In reply to rsx11m from comment #2)
> Well, for the Build ID part (bug 589444) there isn't much enthusiasm coming
> from the Toolkit community already, thus I'm not having much hope that they
> would be willing to accommodate any extensions specific to the mail and news
> settings.

Basically it would be my goal to get a hook into the Core page, or something along those lines.

> It may be easier to move the Thunderbird implementation to MailNews Core so
> that SeaMonkey can benefit from it, thus avoiding that 3rd branch. That
> would be the mail/components/about-support code added in bug 624108 and any
> follow-up patches.

If this is done, I won't be completely against it, but I still worry about us missing changes if we fork from the toolkit version. Thus I will proclaim my WONTFIX support for an *additional* fork over the TB and Toolkit versions

Comment 4

[rsx11m]

I'm flexible with the scope of this bug, whichever solution fits best for everyone. Note that I've added Standard8 to the Cc list for any suggestions.

Comment 5

[rsx11m]

I've mentioned the suggestions of adding hooks to those about:... Toolkit pages to bug 752797 (on the already forked Help > About page). For now, I'm changing the target of the bug here to share Thunderbird's implementation as it appears to be the more realistic solution in the short term. We can revisit this if and when Toolkit may add such hooks, but even then it's likely that TB and SM share the common portions already implemented on top of the Toolkit version.

Comment 6

[Philip Chee]

Nobody has been maintaining the Thunderbird about:support. It has missed out about one years worth of changesets with respect to the toolkit/about
Support.

Comment 8

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

(In reply to rsx11m from comment #0)
> Bug 545110 added the Help > Troubleshooting Information function to
> SeaMonkey, so did bug 548041 for Thunderbird. However, the Thunderbird
> version has some important extensions that should be available for SeaMonkey
> as well:
> 
>  - addition of obfuscated SMTP, IMAP & POP settings
>  - ability to e-mail the troubleshooting page
>  - availability of the Build ID (in light of bug 588909 and bug 589444)
> 
> Given that Thunderbird adds further account types for Instant Messaging and
> external file-storage support, now would be a good time to take a snapshot
> of their mail/news-specific implementation and add it to SeaMonkey, also to
> be less dependent on Toolkit what they are willing to add to this page.

SeaMonkey already has the Build ID in about:support, at least on Trunk (in the "Application Basics" section, near the top), and I added it at the bottom of the about: page when it disappeared from the User Agent. The rest would be interesting.