93946 - Must be able to define separate system associations for reading and editing html documents

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

(SeaMonkey :: Installer, enhancement)

Description

[Dimitrios]

There is no way to have html documents associated with Mozilla for opening AND
with another editor for editing. If I check Preferences->Advanced->System->HTML
documents,  both Composer and Browser are the default applications for editing
and reading html documents.
So I would suggest one more preference: "HTML editor" for the Compositor, while
"HTML documents" would affect only the Browser association.

Comment 1

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

confirming rfe...

should this go to someone in the editor group, perhaps?

Comment 2

[Simon Fraser [no longer active]]

I don't quite understand. What does a URL look like that should load an HTML page 
in an editor?

Comment 3

[Dimitrios]

This is about local html documents accessible through windows file manager, not
internet urls. At least on Win32, there are registry keys for associating
applications, depending on the .xxx extension. Currently, if option
Preferences->Advanced->System->HTML documents is checked, double clicking (or
"Open" command in Windows Explorer context menu) on a htm(l) file invokes
Mozilla browser, while "Edit" command in Windows Explorer context menu invokes
Mozilla Composer. There's no way to have Mozilla for "Open" such files *and*
another editor (e.g. Frontpage) for the "Edit" command. I hope this cleared
things up, a little bit.

Comment 4

[rubydoo123]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 35268 ***

Comment 5

[Simon Fraser [no longer active]]

This is not a dup of that bug (which is about using external editors from 
composer). This is about windows registry mapping foo.

Comment 6

[Simon Fraser [no longer active]]

I still don't understand about how you can distinguish between files that you 
want to edit, rather than view in the browser, since they are all ".html" files.

Comment 7

[rubydoo123]

sorry I read the request as wanting to be able to set a preference allowing 
editing html files via an external app, just as bug 35268 has requested.

Comment 8

[Charles Manske]

My Netscape 6.1 installation has done this correctly:
There is a Windows registry entry to designate an application for "open" and 
"edit" association with a file type:
In the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT section, we register our file association in the 
key = "MozillaHTML->shell->open->command" as 
N:\NETSCAPE\NEAC18~1\NETSCP6.EXE -url "%1"
(the path to your installed netscape program)
and for key = "MozillaHTML->shell->edit->command" as 
N:\NETSCAPE\NEAC18~1\NETSCP6.EXE -edit "%1"
If I right click on an HTML file in Windows file explorer, there is a context
menu option "edit", which loads the file into Composer correctly.

So is the issue that we aren't doing this in the mozilla build?
Maybe this registry stuff is only happening in the Netscape Commercial build?

Comment 9

[Charles Manske]

I missread the original bug. I see that this request is to use a different app,
not Composer. This would have to be done during installation, I think, to ask
the user what application to use, so this bug should go to the install team.
Another way to do it is via a preference as suggested, but that seems much less
discoverable since it would require a user to know that the pref exists and to
fill it in and reload, etc.

Comment 10

[Dimitrios]

Charles, the issue of Pref->Advanced->System options being difficult to discover
by the average user is another issue (there's already a bug about it).
Personally, I think one more option about editing would add value (and reduce
annoyance) for the power user. Most average users wouldn't care about editing
html but developpers definitely would.

Comment 11

[Charles Manske]

We did have an "external editor" Composer pref in Netscape 4.x, but that was 
used to let an advanced author access it via the Edit menu, "HTML Source" command,
not what was launched from the "edit" item in Windows file explorer (manager).

Comment 12

[rubydoo123]

so, what should we be doing here? is this an editor issue, or should another
team own this one?

Comment 13

[Charles Manske]

Good question! I think it should be an installer RFE.
This is what I would suggest:
1. During installation, ask the user if they want to associate Composer with 
the "Edit" menuitem, or let them supply another app. We should then supply a
"Choose File" button and associated code to let user get that application.
A simpler option would be a checkbox:
[ ] Use Composer to edit HTML files
which would tell us to write the "edit" registry item or not; i.e., we don't 
supply an alternate application if they don't want to use Composer.

Comment 14

[Daniel Veditz [:dveditz]]

The installer ain't going to do this. First it'll be this pref, then the
font-size/screen resolution folks will come back, and pretty soon we're walking
people through the equivalent of the entire preferences dialog.

The installer's job is to install the software. Customizations go elsewhere.

Comment 15

[Grace Bush]

verified