90153 - Offline: need zone-based mode

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core :: Networking, enhancement)

Description

[Jens Hatlak (:InvisibleSmiley)]

Coming from Bug 87717 I was told to open a new bug for this, so here it is:

Being in Offline mode, you cannot reach http://localhost/ because of Bug
87717. But even if this bug will be fixed there is no way to reach other
offline sites (i.e. ones that are offline-available permanently either due
to the presence of an offline webserver or an intranet).

For those who ask themselves which URLs - apart from http://localhost/ -
these should be, please note that you can define almost any name to be
made an offline webserver's address (using virtual domains); the computer's
name as another way to reach 127.0.0.1 is just one possibility.

Now I think there is a need for being able to make a list of sites (i.e.
URLs) that are permanently available and thus can be displayed/browsed
even in Offline mode.

One of the main reasons why I need this is that I have defined my (Mozilla
browser-) Home Page as one of this kind of URLs and see this damn dialogue
telling me I'm in Offline mode much too often when I start Mozilla...

I'm not so much involved in the Mozilla project that I could really suggest
a proper place where to put this list, but maybe prefs.js would be a
good idea?

Comment 1

[benc]

We need some kind of "zone manager", this has been needed to make a bunch of
RFE's or bugs work, enough so I can't remember. I've finally created bug 169106
to address this.

Comment 2

[Doug Turner (:dougt)]

moving neeti's futured bugs for triaging.

Comment 3

[Chris "SoopahMan" Moschini]

At introduction of this feature there will probably be only a few, very simple
zones - perhaps Trusted, Internet and Restricted, to steal directly from the
origin of zones.

However it's worth considering, eventually, a more elaborate set. User-defined
is probably going too far, but instead of Internet there might be "Reference"
and "News" - Reference being for sites that don't change much (always try to
load from cache - check website only as last resort), News for sites that change
constantly (never bother with the cache).

This dynamic would give Mozilla an edge no other browser can offer.

Comment 4

[Patrick McManus [:mcmanus]]

we did add access to localhost during offline.. beyond that WONTFIX