Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky] Reporter
	Description • 24 years ago

Once bug 78919 and bug 52441 are fixed, a parser for mailcap entry handlers 
should be added to nsOSHelperAppService::LaunchAppWithTempFile.  This will 
complete mailcap support for Mozilla.

	Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky] Reporter
	Comment 1 • 24 years ago

Adding dependencies.

This should also remove the "dirty hack" introduced by bug 52441

	Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky] Reporter
	Comment 2 • 23 years ago

Not happening any time too soon... too much arch work to be done first.

	Bram Cohen
	Comment 3 • 23 years ago

I can't believe this bug is still in there. This means that mimetype handling is
broken, and is broken in a way which reminds the user that it's broken *every
time* they click on a link which uses a non-preconfigured helper app. This
seriously harms the UI of my application, which you can get here -
http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/download.html - all I can tell people is that
the annoying dialogue you have to click 'yes' on every time is mozilla's fault,
and no, there's nothing you can do about it. 

As far as I can tell apps like xmms are acting as plug-ins rather than helper
apps, a non-cross-browser technique they most definitely should not have to do.

	Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky] Reporter
	Comment 4 • 23 years ago

If you note, this bug has a nonempty "depends on" field.  That field is not
there for fun.  Right now, there is simply no place to store the full mailcap
entry for later retrieval and parsing; arch work needs to be done for that. 
Since it seems I'm the only one who's interested in actually working on it
rather than whining about it, it won't happen till I have time, which will not
happen till I finish my thesis and graduate.

All that said, it is incredibly unlikely that what you're seeing is caused by
_this_ bug unless you depend on being able to execute arbitrary shell commands
in mailcap helper entries (rather than just running a program).  Does the dialog
that comes up get pre-filled with the helper app information correctly?  If so,
it sounds more likely that your users are just not checking the "never ask me
again" checkbox that dialog.

	Bram Cohen
	Comment 5 • 23 years ago

I just tried it with 0.9.8, and I'm seeing considerably better behavior -
previously unchecking the 'don't ask again' box didn't work, it kept re-asking
anyway (which, you're correct, doesn't appear to be _this_ bug, but I'm having
trouble following the maze of bugs related to mimetypes)

I consider asking that question even once to be broken behavior - it's already
configured, isn't it? That should be pretty clear. But I don't expect to be able
to make any headway arguing against that behavior because it isn't broken enough
to be something which might get fixed.

I also can't figure out if there's an RFE to have /etc/mailcap get re-parsed if
an unknown mimetype is encountered, to avoid having to restart mozilla in such
cases, but maybe that's hoping for too much...

	Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky] Reporter
	Comment 6 • 23 years ago

> I consider asking that question even once to be broken behavior - it's already
> configured, isn't it?

It is.  Unfortunately, the default configuration is often crap.  For example, on
RedHat Linux up through 7.2 the default "helper" for postscript is lpr.  They
didn't change it to gv till I filed a bug on them to do it, which was about 3
months ago.  So we give the user a chance to stamp their approval on the default
config or select something else to use.

> I also can't figure out if there's an RFE to have /etc/mailcap get re-parsed

There is not, but then again it's currently reparsed any time a type is unknown.
 We used to cache the result once we found a match, but the cache had major
issues and has been turned off (that may have been post-0.9.8).  It will not be
turned on again without addressing the problem you mention.

	basic
	Comment 7 • 23 years ago

remove self

	Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky] Reporter
	Comment 8 • 23 years ago

The changes to enable "useSystemDefault" that are being made in bug 86640 will
make this possible even if bug 78919 is fixed.

	Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky] Reporter
	Comment 9 • 22 years ago

not happening in the foreseeable future

	Göran Uddeborg
	Comment 10 • 22 years ago

Am I mistaken if I conclude this is a security issue?  Say one, as could be the
default, has an /etc/mailcap entry

   application/postscript ; gv -safer %s

Then with the current partial implementation the effect would be to use gv, but
without the -safer flag, right?

	Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky] Reporter
	Comment 11 • 22 years ago

That's correct, and a really good point... There may well be other apps which
have a "default" mode and a "secure" mode and we could be launching the less
secure mode...

	Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky] Reporter
	Comment 12 • 22 years ago

*** Bug 186304 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

	benc
	Comment 13 • 22 years ago

Uh, that bug is a security bug. Can we open it if it is indeed a dupe?

	Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky] Reporter
	Comment 14 • 22 years ago

I said it should be opened in that bug a few weeks back... but in typical
fashion that didn't help any.

	Samir Gehani
	Comment 15 • 22 years ago

adt: nsbeta1-

	Joshua Kwan Assignee
	Comment 16 • 20 years ago

Has this bug stagnated? I don't see why it's so hard to do it - I can try to
provide a patch if desired...

This is a really critical thing to get fixed, IMO.

	Mats Larsson
	Comment 17 • 20 years ago

(In reply to comment #16)
> Has this bug stagnated? I don't see why it's so hard to do it - I can try to
> provide a patch if desired...
> 
> This is a really critical thing to get fixed, IMO.

Agree. Great if you can fix it.

	Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky] Reporter
	Comment 18 • 20 years ago

This stagnated because I'm frankly not interested in doing this at this point...
 If you post a patch, I'd be happy to review and help it land; let me know if
you need pointers to the code in Mozilla that handles mailcap files.

	Marc Gariepy
	Comment 19 • 14 years ago

nice to see that in 2010, with firefox 4.0 this is still an issue
I work on LTSP on linux, we run gnome on the server and firefox on a thin client and to be able to integrate correctly firefox and the gnome desktop, i can add some entry in /etc/mailcap to be able to launch the applications on the server, here is on of mailcap entry that works with chromium but doesn't in firefox.
Do you think this bug will be solved soon ?  of shall i just wait another 10 year to see if the status will change to "OPEN"?

== mailcap entry ==
application/vnd.ms-excel; /usr/bin/ltsp-remoteapps soffice -no-oosplash -calc '%s'; edit=/usr/bin/ltsp-remoteapps soffice -no-oosplash -calc '%s'; test=test -n "$DISPLAY"; description="Microsoft Excel Document"; nametemplate=%s.xls
===

	Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky] Reporter
	Comment 20 • 14 years ago

Mark, see comment 18?

	Patrick McManus [:mcmanus]
	Comment 21 • 9 years ago

would reopen with a plan and patch