787683 - Thunderbird internal browser back/forward navigation

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Toolbars and Tabs, defect)

Description

[Vittorio Giovara]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:15.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/15.0
Build ID: 20120824154833

Steps to reproduce:

While using Thunderbird integrated browser I wanted to go back to a previous page in history and, not finding any back/forward buttons I pressed Firefox shortcut "Alt+Left Arrow" and then the dreaded "Backspace" but neither of them worked.


Actual results:

I remained in the same page.


Expected results:

I should have been able to navigate in my history somehow. Even though lack of buttons are ok, there should be the same shortcuts as in Firefox, in my opinion.

Comment 1

[Suny]

I concur with Vittorio. I feel that a basic set of navigational buttons or behavior (mouse or kybrd.) should be implemented in an effort to "complete" ThunderBird's in-browsing capabilities.
A good example of this problematic behavior can be observed from w/in your website, specifically, https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/extensions/ or https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/complete-themes/. In this scenario, you are presented with the "most popular" listing of page one(1). Now click a given extension or theme. Then, try to return to the original page; resulting in no ability to do so EXCEPT by clicking the link on the top-left where it says (shows a "home" icon followed by) Complete Themes or Extensions( and where is followed by the page you are currently viewing). Clicking "complete theme" or "extensions" brings you back to the original listing page. Furthermore, suppose that you have navigated to the third page listing and then clicked an interested extension or theme, then decided to return to the listing page will result in having to click "complete theme" or "extensions" link (@top-left) because there is no "back" button and you will be presented WITH the FIRST page of the "complete theme" or"extensions" and NOT the third page. This is the expected behavior of the link.
The solution, therefore, is the implementation of basic navigation behavior for the ThunderBird's internal browser.
Do you concur with this?

Comment 2

[Suny]

I may be negating my brain cells.(lol)
While the idea of a set of "buttons" for Navigation w/in the in-browser of the mail client can address this issue, the question (and I know many have thought this out) is: If you wanted a full mail AND Web browser (all-in-one) then use SeaMonkey.
The thing is, when there is a link on a mail message, clicking it will open the default Browser and NOT the in-browser function w/in ThunderBird (Hint: how did I get to this page?) So, yea from a security standpoint, it is logical to open a web browser that has Full Capabilities built-in.
With regards to my earlier example using the "add-ons" web-page, I could suggest that the link: "Home Symbol" >> Extensions could be modified by ADDING: >>"page number" at the end. This fulfills the ability to navigate w/in the Add-ons web-page. Simple coding really. As to navigating on other web-sites, the security implications is foremost and FireFox seems to do that exceptionally (don't ask me about the "other" Browsers please TY).
This is NOT a shortcoming of the ThunderBird Team. Navigational buttons is at their discretion.

Disclosure: Use Firefox, Thunderbird, Seamonkey, & Songbird. And yes I open all of them when Surfing! lol What I'd do if given a FireFox OS Phone, mmmmm! Hey, how about a "Mini Thunderbird Mail Client" build with HTML5? Now that would make FireFox OS Complete.

Have a Great Year, let's bring the next 15 yrs. some Hoopla (Ballyhoo)!

Comment 3

[V S Rawat]

It is sad to see that no action is taken for almost a decade on reported issues.

Yes, I also feel that when browsing option is given in tb, at lease some basic browsing help should be provided, like showing address bar, Back button, forward button, back/ forward history.

I was using Thunderbrowse addon for quite some time and that provided some of these functionalities, so I didn't complain, but now that addon is abondoned, I have to request to you.

Either stop browsing within tb and open all url in default browser (ff), or if browsing is taking place within tb, some minimal set of browsing help must be there.

Thanks.

Comment 4

[T.H.Schmidt]

Attachment: stuck in a Thunderbird browser tab ...

no chance to navigate away from this ...

Comment 5

[T.H.Schmidt]

Yes same thing here, you can even end up in a browser window that does not do anything

Comment 6

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

Attachment: 787683-add-nav-btn-to-content-tabs.patch

Okay Geoff, this should be the right bug for this stuff.

Please if you have some spare time, could you look what is needed to work? My patch adds the buttons but they don't work yet.

Comment 7

[Geoff Lankow (:darktrojan) [PTO, back 2 Nov]]

Attachment: 787683-add-nav-btn-to-content-tabs-2.patch

I've wired this together rather differently than I had planned. Doing it this way could be considered cheating but avoids having to deal with commands and whether or not they're disabled based on the current tab etc..

The main change I made from your patch was to not use ids for the buttons, as the whole tab is cloned for each tab, and there can be only one element with any particular id. Aside from that, I am happy with your code. If you are happy with mine, let's land it.

Comment 8

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

Comment on attachment 9107795 [details] [diff] [review]
787683-add-nav-btn-to-content-tabs-2.patch

Thanks. Good catch with the IDs.

Comment 9

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

Attachment: 1593438-add-nav-btn-to-content-tabs-3.patch

This is the same patch with small changes in CSS to make the buttons theme dependent when disabled and gave some margin.

Comment 10

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

Jörg, what do you think, should I create a patch for ESR without the tooltips? I found no appropriate replacements for them. But maybe better we have buttons without tooltips than no buttons.

Comment 11

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Absolutely.

Comment 12

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Comment on attachment 9107904 [details] [diff] [review]
1593438-add-nav-btn-to-content-tabs-3.patch

Strictly I can't uplift string changes to beta either. Can you drop the strings for beta, please.

Comment 13

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

Attachment: 1593438-add-nav-btn-to-content-tabs-beta-ESR.patch

Without tooltips for beta and ESR.

Comment 14

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/fb1c453eb2a0
Add navigation buttons to the content tabs. r=darktrojan

Comment 15

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

TB 71 beta 3:
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/comm-beta/rev/f9de4d2ba542874f03c273be63666218ecd8f1d2

I thought this would be fixing bug 1577823 :-( - That's a content tab, right?

Comment 16

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

It's a content tab but the toolbar is hidden through this rule: https://searchfox.org/comm-central/source/mail/themes/shared/mail/tabmail.css#354
But unhiding doesn't help as the buttons are always disabled.

Comment 17

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

TB 68.3 ESR:
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/comm-esr68/rev/a942483bcdb29fc8dbf72a1234721a8b1e8cc4f9

Comment 18

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Working in my TB 68 build.