I would like to open a url in a current browser window from a command line. This way I could click desktop links or links in my non-Mozilla mail client and have them reuse the open browser window. If no window is open the command would open a new one.

->cmd line feature

WFM, Kevin the way to do it is mozilla -remote "openURL(http://mozilla.org)" or similar. If you meant something different to this, please comment. Thanks.

John, what OS are you using? This doesn't work for me in Win2k. I have seen blurbs about -remote, but maybe it only works on nix boxes. Perhaps I should change this bug's OS to "non-*nix".

My bad. Couldn't find a dupe (!), ->NEW

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 75138 ***

No. Bug 75138 is wonderful and I would like to see it fixed. This one is about controlling the window opening behavior dynamically via the command line, not by a pref (ie. statically.) Reopening

Then I disagree with this bug. With Internet Explorer, AIM opens links in new windows, Outlook Express reuses windows, and mIRC has a pref whether to reuse browser windows. Why should an IRC client have that pref? We should not encourage other apps to use commands that specifically open a new window or reuse an existing window.

>We should not encourage other apps to use commands that specifically open a new >window or reuse an existing window. Apps can't be encouraged; computer users can. Why shouldn't the user decide how these things happen? It's not in any W3C spec I know of. Besides, we already do this in other areas. In *nix versions one can use -remote. In Windows there is DDE. There is no reason why I shouldn't be able to have shortcuts open in existing windows and mail links open in new windows. Eventually this capability should extend to tabs as well.

Kevin, I think we agree that the user should have control, but disagree about how to give the user control. I think having an option in the browser (bug 75138) is the best way to give the user control, because it doesn't require the user to tweak prefs in every app to get each app to cooperate. Having command-line options for "reuse window", etc. would make it more likely for app authors to make /their/ personal preferences the default for their apps, and would also make it more likely for app authors to include unnecessary options in their apps.

Here is a screenshot showing how an application can take advantage of multiple command-line options. I will choose a different option based on whether I want to save what's in the frontmost Mozilla window or not. Please mark NEW. Get this off the uncomfirmed list.

I' confirming this because I believe its a valid request. If a developer doesn't think so, then he or she can change its resolution to WONTFIX, etc, but this doesn't belong on the uncomfirmed list.

Netdemon: in comment 9 I said Mozilla should disourage other apps from including what should be Mozilla preferences in their preferences. Your screenshot shows an application making "open link in Mozilla" a submenu of the context menu where each item in the context menu should be a Mozilla pref, which is even worse than having a misplaced pref. I don't understand why you think the screenshot is an argument for Mozilla to support specific command-line options like "open in existing window" or "open in a new tab in an existing window"; I think it's a great argument against having those command-line options.

Sorry, I don't quite understand what you are getting at. :-(

Jesse, I think your comment is irrelevant on Unix because this functionality is already there through the "-remote" options in the command line. Bug 158172 addresses the lack of this functionality on other OS's.

davor: just because something has been implemented doesn't mean it was the right thing to do. I agree with jesse, I should be able to specify in mozilla what hpapens when an app gives mozilla an url. The reason is pretty simple, I don't want to get five applications say aim, icq, mirc, outlook, and realplayer each having either a pref to decide how to control my browser or just have made the decision about how to abuse my browser. Suppose for fun that i had two mozilla profiles, in one I like to open links in new windows and in another I like to open links in new tabs. If you hardcode the newtab option into the registry, then the fact that a mozilla profile wants to have a preference won't work, because you've created a feature which causes the external agent (like a webpage) to dictate how the web browser should behave. we shouldn't do this. just like we shouldn't let webpages call window.openTab() [which doesn't exist, but you can guess what it would do].

Does this mean if on Windows an application executes something like "rundll32 url.dll,FileProtocolHandler <url>", there is a Mozilla preference whether it will open a new window, a new tab, or reuse an existing window? That would be useful. And we may be talking purely about personal preferences here, because I would prefer to have at least an option to have per-application control of how they interact with Mozilla to open Web pages. For example, when I click on a link in my mailer, I like to just open a new tab; but when say an IDE uses Mozilla to browse its help system, I want it in a separate window. It sounds like you would prefer to get this kind of behaviour through using different profiles. I'm not too keen on that solution because other than opening urls I want to keep all of my other preferences, bookmarks, and cache across those profiles.

External links are now handled using browser preferences.

Not that I care anymore, but external links have been handled by preferences for a long time. That's not what this bug was about, as addressed in comment #6. It is about telling Mozilla how to open links specified on the command-line on Windows. More generally it would include all of the -remote options that are available on non-Windows platforms. I won't re-open, as it should probably be closed as 'wontfix' anyway.