99634 - no way to change system wide default search engine

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(SeaMonkey :: Search, defect)

Description

[Frank Belew]

According to all.js, mozilla checks navigator.properties for the default engine
using the |browser.search.defaultenginename| pref. 
If I set this to be |browser.search.defaultenginename=Google| the engine ends up
being (null) and searching breaks. I have also tried the value |google| as well

This is a 0.9.4 branch build.
The google.src file lists its name as |name="Google"|

Comment 1

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

claudius, you are strong in the way of search prefs. this smells of dupeness.
concur or no?

Comment 2

[Claudius Gayle]

I'm not sure it's a dupe but it may well be invalid. One does not mess with
their search prefs in all.js - strong magic there.
One opens up the pref panel Edit|Preferences|Navigator|Internet Search and makes
changes there. They are then propagated to all the correct listeners.

Comment 3

[Frank Belew]

The whole point of this bug is that Vendors cannot change the search engine.
So if Yahoo wanted to ship a mozilla, it would still search on Netscape.
(not like this would happen, but its definitely an example)

Comment 4

[Frank Belew]

adding samir to the CC

Comment 5

[Samir Gehani]

Taking.  This bug is the result of a discussion on #mozilla with frb and as such
is a search bug, not a prefs bug.

Comment 6

[matt]

To change the default search engine it needs to be done in navigator.properties.
This is because we are using nsIPrefLocalizedString to get the preference which 
looks for a properties file instead of a string.  You'll see if you change this 
to Google in the navigator.properties file it will work fine.

We do this because the default engine should be able to be localizable.

Comment 7

[matt]

I think this bug should be marked invalid unless someone wants wrap it in a try 
catch in case the pref is changed to a string.

Comment 8

[Samir Gehani]

Oops.  Matt is correct: change it only in navigator.properties, leaving all.js
untouched.  See also:
<http://lxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/xpfe/browser/resources/locale/en-US/navigator.properties#35>

Comment 9

[jag (Peter Annema)]

I talked to frb. He says he changed the value in navigator.properties, and it
doesn't work as expected (why doesn't this surprise me?).

Comment 10

[Samir Gehani]

Moving to mozilla0.9.7.

Comment 11

[Samir Gehani]

*** Bug 109787 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 12

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

This is a much bigger issue for translation.

There should at least be a comment in navigator.properties that there must be a 
.src file in searchplugins that corresponds to the default search engine.

Comment 13

[Samir Gehani]

-> mozilla0.9.9

Comment 14

[Peter Trudelle]

-> mozilla1.0, nsbeta1+

Comment 15

[Peter Trudelle]

nsbeta1- per ADT triage team, ->1.2

Comment 16

[Andreas Kunz]

I think this works now. Sooner or later I'll test it, but if somebody else wants
to...

Comment 17

[Robert Kaiser]

This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but has been without a comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project. This means that it was logged against the old Mozilla suite and we cannot determine that it's still valid for the current SeaMonkey suite. Because of this, we are setting it to an UNCONFIRMED state.

If you can confirm that this report still applies to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it back to the NEW state along with a comment on how you reproduced it on what Build ID, or if it's an enhancement request, why it's still worth implementing and in what way.
If you can confirm that the report doesn't apply to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it to the appropriate RESOLVED state (WORKSFORME, INVALID, WONTFIX, or similar).
If no action happens within the next few months, we move this bug report to an EXPIRED state.

Query tag for this change: mass-UNCONFIRM-20090614

Comment 18

[Robert Kaiser]

This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but has been without a comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project. This means that it was logged against the old Mozilla suite and we cannot determine that it's still valid for the current SeaMonkey suite. Because of this, we are setting it to an UNCONFIRMED state.

If you can confirm that this report still applies to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it back to the NEW state along with a comment on how you reproduced it on what Build ID, or if it's an enhancement request, why it's still worth implementing and in what way.
If you can confirm that the report doesn't apply to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it to the appropriate RESOLVED state (WORKSFORME, INVALID, WONTFIX, or similar).
If no action happens within the next few months, we move this bug report to an EXPIRED state.

Query tag for this change: mass-UNCONFIRM-20090614

Comment 19

[Robert Kaiser]

This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but has been without a comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project. This means that it was logged against the old Mozilla suite and we cannot determine that it's still valid for the current SeaMonkey suite. Because of this, we are setting it to an UNCONFIRMED state.

If you can confirm that this report still applies to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it back to the NEW state along with a comment on how you reproduced it on what Build ID, or if it's an enhancement request, why it's still worth implementing and in what way.
If you can confirm that the report doesn't apply to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it to the appropriate RESOLVED state (WORKSFORME, INVALID, WONTFIX, or similar).
If no action happens within the next few months, we move this bug report to an EXPIRED state.

Query tag for this change: mass-UNCONFIRM-20090614

Comment 20

[Robert Kaiser]

This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but has been without a comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project. This means that it was logged against the old Mozilla suite and we cannot determine that it's still valid for the current SeaMonkey suite. Because of this, we are setting it to an UNCONFIRMED state.

If you can confirm that this report still applies to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it back to the NEW state along with a comment on how you reproduced it on what Build ID, or if it's an enhancement request, why it's still worth implementing and in what way.
If you can confirm that the report doesn't apply to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it to the appropriate RESOLVED state (WORKSFORME, INVALID, WONTFIX, or similar).
If no action happens within the next few months, we move this bug report to an EXPIRED state.

Query tag for this change: mass-UNCONFIRM-20090614

Comment 21

[Robert Kaiser]

This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but has been without a comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project. This means that it was logged against the old Mozilla suite and we cannot determine that it's still valid for the current SeaMonkey suite. Because of this, we are setting it to an UNCONFIRMED state.

If you can confirm that this report still applies to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it back to the NEW state along with a comment on how you reproduced it on what Build ID, or if it's an enhancement request, why it's still worth implementing and in what way.
If you can confirm that the report doesn't apply to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it to the appropriate RESOLVED state (WORKSFORME, INVALID, WONTFIX, or similar).
If no action happens within the next few months, we move this bug report to an EXPIRED state.

Query tag for this change: mass-UNCONFIRM-20090614

Comment 22

[Robert Kaiser]

This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but has been without a comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project. This means that it was logged against the old Mozilla suite and we cannot determine that it's still valid for the current SeaMonkey suite. Because of this, we are setting it to an UNCONFIRMED state.

If you can confirm that this report still applies to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it back to the NEW state along with a comment on how you reproduced it on what Build ID, or if it's an enhancement request, why it's still worth implementing and in what way.
If you can confirm that the report doesn't apply to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it to the appropriate RESOLVED state (WORKSFORME, INVALID, WONTFIX, or similar).
If no action happens within the next few months, we move this bug report to an EXPIRED state.

Query tag for this change: mass-UNCONFIRM-20090614

Comment 23

[Robert Kaiser]

This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but has been without a comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project. This means that it was logged against the old Mozilla suite and we cannot determine that it's still valid for the current SeaMonkey suite. Because of this, we are setting it to an UNCONFIRMED state.

If you can confirm that this report still applies to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it back to the NEW state along with a comment on how you reproduced it on what Build ID, or if it's an enhancement request, why it's still worth implementing and in what way.
If you can confirm that the report doesn't apply to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it to the appropriate RESOLVED state (WORKSFORME, INVALID, WONTFIX, or similar).
If no action happens within the next few months, we move this bug report to an EXPIRED state.

Query tag for this change: mass-UNCONFIRM-20090614

Comment 24

[Robert Kaiser]

MASS-CHANGE:
This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but still has no comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project 5 years ago.

Because of this, we're resolving the bug as EXPIRED.

If you still can reproduce the bug on SeaMonkey 2 or otherwise think it's still valid, please REOPEN it and if it is a platform or toolkit issue, move it to the according component.

Query tag for this change: EXPIRED-20100420

Comment 25

[Ian Neal]

Changing region.properties does work -> WFM