87787 - need a stop button for view source

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Toolkit :: View Source, enhancement, P4)

Description

[Simon Huerlimann]

we developed an application with java servlets. one of these servlets produces
very big documents. during development we were most time just interested in the
first few lines. But we were unable to stop the loading in the source view.
so we would be very happy to have the possibility to stop the download in the
source view

thx simon

Comment 1

[timeless]

interesting

Comment 2

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

If we're doing view source right, there is no loading involved -- we load from
cache.  Thus what we would actually have to stop is the parser/layout engine...
 Does the stop button in the browser stop pending parsing and layout?  Doron,
are you still playing with the UI?  wanna toss in a stop button/menuoption and
see whether it works?

Comment 3

[Tim Powell]

I'd think that view-source:http://arbitraryURLhere would not load from cache 
(if the page hasn't already been loaded). Also, if it doesn't work already, 
shouldn't the Esc key also stop the loading? Esc worked to stop loading in 
view source for Netscape 4.x.

Comment 4

[Doron Rosenberg (IBM)]

my linux build is dead, so can't test it. Adding a <key> that uses the command
used for the browser's esc keybinding might work.

Comment 5

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

I added the keybinding and that does not work.  Once we're in layout, the UI is
just unresponsive. I have no idea how to get this to work, frankly.  And there
are more serious bugs I need to work on.  Any help with this one would be
appreciated.

Comment 6

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

OK, I've played with this some more.  I tried the <key> approach again, and it
works, but only on pages which are not stuck in the linebreaker all the time...

Comment 7

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

OK.  The linebreaker issue is no longer an issue.  We spend about 20 times less
time in there now, and Simon's gonna make it better yet in bug 129167.

So now a stop button would actually make sense and work (though a caveat is bug
129640).  I can have it all hooked up and ready to go as soon as we have a ui
spec.  Main questions:

1)  Where exactly do we put the stop button?  (we just have a menu in viewsource,
    no toolbar).
2)  Which icon do we use?  The normal "stop" icon?  The full-screen-mode
    "mini-stop" icon?

mpt?  doron?

Comment 8

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

1.1alpha is frozen.  Unsetting milestone and will retriage in a few days when I
can make a realistic assessment of the situation.

Comment 9

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

To UI design to make a decision here.

Comment 10

[mozilla]

For any page which is visible, "Save As", "Print", "View Source", "Open Frame In New Tab" and similar functions should never, under any circumstance, open a network connection.  The viewed pages must be stored raw in RAM or disk cache, any other method is faulty.  HTTP headers or meta tags specifying not to cache a page should have no bearing on the user's ability to use the currently viewed page(s).

You do not need a stop button if the browser correctly uses a cached page.

Comment 11

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

> For any page which is visible

I suggest reading up on the existing architectural reasons why this is no the case (including things like users having limited memory and disk space).  But that has nothing to do with this bug.

Comment 12

[mozilla]

Those so-called "architectural reasons" are absolutely stupid.  Nobody uses Firefox/Mozilla/SeaMonkey on an embedded system.  Saving a few bytes by not recording the actual data received by the server is stupid beyond belief.  Run it through gzip/lzib and be done with it.  If the person has such limited resources, then they can set their cache low and will only be able to view a single page at a time -- so be it.

The way things are now, the browser breaks whenever a user wants to view, save, print or otherwise manipulate the page they are looking at.  This is a horrible design flaw and it makes these browsers unusable or unfriendly for thousands of people.  Firefox re-downloads images when you try to save them, redownloads pages when you try to save or view source them, etc.  Rerendering pages from this metaformat is quite insane.  When a person goes to View > Source, they expect to see only what the server sent -- nothing else.  This is how every other browser I have ever used operates (several dozen of them).

Comment 13

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

> Nobody uses Firefox/Mozilla/SeaMonkey on an embedded system.

OK, that shows me that you did not in fact go and read up on things like I asked you to.  Please do us all a favor and stop your ranting until you have in fact done that.

Note that if you have ever used Netscape 4 or eariler then your claim about view source is false (not only did it not show what the server sent, but not even what the server _might_ have sent).  But let's not worry about minor inaccuracies like that.

Comment 14

[Philip Chee]

SeaMonkey trunk is now using toolkit viewsource.

Comment 15

[Eric Brown]

It would be good if it worked when escape is pressed at least.

Comment 16

[Gregory Pappas [:gregp]]

'View source' opens in a normal tab with a reload/stop button these days.