859579 - Work - disable pdf.js in metro Firefox

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox for Metro Graveyard :: Components, defect)

Description

[Jim Mathies [:jimm]]

str:
- open a multipage pdf
- try to scroll the document

result: document doesn't scroll

Comment 1

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

We should drop PDF.js support on Metro until they're a better experience than the Reader app.  I'll get a story for removing it.

Comment 2

[Jim Mathies [:jimm]]

This is still broken for touch. The work here should be pretty simple.

Comment 3

[AM]

It should be disabled for all platforms. Just a short time on the web
show that it uses too much memory
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=878397

It prints incorrectly
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=880181

and fails to render many documents on the web
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=844472

In a university setting, with many users on medium power computers
the result of trying to view pdf files is a disaster on about 10%
of all files that need to be accessed which teaching a class using technical
documents

It is a way to generate a disastrous reputation for users of firefox
I should be turned on when it works for all but a tiny proportion of documents

Comment 5

[Rodrigo Silveira [:rsilveira] [:rodms]]

Attachment: Patch v1

Disabling pdfjs.

Comment 6

[Rodrigo Silveira [:rsilveira] [:rodms]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/fx-team/rev/ca5b3cc4e7c6

Comment 7

[Matt Brubeck (:mbrubeck)]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/ca5b3cc4e7c6

Comment 8

[Bill Walker [:bwalker] [@wfwalker]]

(In reply to Asa Dotzler [:asa] from comment #1)
> We should drop PDF.js support on Metro until they're a better experience
> than the Reader app.  I'll get a story for removing it.

Hi Asa,

Can I ask that in future we more of an effort to inform the PDF.js team about issues like this? This isn't filed against our PDF Viewer component, nor was mentioned in #pdf.js IRC or in our mailing list.

Our telemetry data for other platforms suggests that PDF.js is working well for the vast majority of documents, and we're having pretty good luck with touch devices on Firefox OS, so we'd like to work with the right people to get this reenabled.

thanks,
-Bill

Comment 9

[Jim Mathies [:jimm]]

(In reply to Bill Walker [:bwalker] [@wfwalker] from comment #8)
> (In reply to Asa Dotzler [:asa] from comment #1)
> > We should drop PDF.js support on Metro until they're a better experience
> > than the Reader app.  I'll get a story for removing it.
> 
> Hi Asa,
> 
> Can I ask that in future we more of an effort to inform the PDF.js team
> about issues like this? This isn't filed against our PDF Viewer component,
> nor was mentioned in #pdf.js IRC or in our mailing list.
> 
> Our telemetry data for other platforms suggests that PDF.js is working well
> for the vast majority of documents, and we're having pretty good luck with
> touch devices on Firefox OS, so we'd like to work with the right people to
> get this reenabled.
> 
> thanks,
> -Bill

We can reopen bug 922323 and move it to the right component so we have something to keep track of.

Comment 10

[Bill Walker [:bwalker] [@wfwalker]]

(In reply to Jim Mathies [:jimm] from comment #9)

> We can reopen bug 922323 and move it to the right component so we have
> something to keep track of.

Awesome, thanks Jim!

Comment 11

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

(In reply to Bill Walker [:bwalker] [@wfwalker] from comment #8)
> (In reply to Asa Dotzler [:asa] from comment #1)
> > We should drop PDF.js support on Metro until they're a better experience
> > than the Reader app.  I'll get a story for removing it.
> 
> Hi Asa,
> 
> Can I ask that in future we more of an effort to inform the PDF.js team
> about issues like this? This isn't filed against our PDF Viewer component,
> nor was mentioned in #pdf.js IRC or in our mailing list.
> 
> Our telemetry data for other platforms suggests that PDF.js is working well
> for the vast majority of documents, and we're having pretty good luck with
> touch devices on Firefox OS, so we'd like to work with the right people to
> get this reenabled.
> 
> thanks,
> -Bill

Bill, back when I was still managing this product, I made the call that we should prefer the system viewer to  our own built-in player. While I appreciate that PDF.js is making things a lot better for Firefox users, I'm not sure it's the right experience for Metro.  Metro is a tablet experience where "apps" dominate, like on phones. People don't need or want a "everything including the kitchen sink" browser on Metro. They have apps that handle so much and in a way that's very user-choice friendly.

Having said that, this is Karen's baby now and I defer to her judgement on this.

Comment 12

[Matt Brubeck (:mbrubeck)]

I backed out the code removal parts of this patch but left the preference change in place:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/fx-team/rev/c8c8831321da

This means that PDF.js is still disabled in Metro by default, but developers and testers can now easily test it in nightly Metro builds by setting "pdfjs.disabled" to "false" in about:config.