Get Help Online appears to do nothing if firefox minimised

[Ian Jackson]

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 affects /ubuntu/firefox

I was testing the feisty beta
daily-live/20070320.1/feisty-desktop-i386.iso as livecd. I had a
minimised firefox open.

When I selected `Get Help Online' in the photo manager application
it opened a new tab in that firefox and made it the current tab.
However firefox remained minimised.

The effect is that `Get Help Online' didn't appear to do anything. It
should either un-minimise and raise the firefox window it uses, or
make a new window.

Ian.
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[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

I am able to reproduce this and i agree with Ian that "get help online" should opena new window or un-minimize firefox. I perfer open a new window.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

On Tue, Mar 20, 2007 at 06:00:47PM -0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> When I selected `Get Help Online' in the photo manager application
> it opened a new tab in that firefox and made it the current tab.
> However firefox remained minimised.
>
> The effect is that `Get Help Online' didn't appear to do anything. It
> should either un-minimise and raise the firefox window it uses, or
> make a new window.
>

For me this does not look like a bug. When you setup firefox to open
new pages in new tabs (which is the default for us), this is the
expected behaviour.

 - Alexander

[Freddy Martinez (freddymartinez9)]

I agree with Alex, I don't think Firefox should take focus.

[Ian Jackson (ijackson)]

Alexander Sack writes ("Re: [Bug 94166] Get Help Online appears to do nothing if firefox minimised"):
> For me this does not look like a bug. When you setup firefox to open
> new pages in new tabs (which is the default for us), this is the
> expected behaviour.

?!

Think of this from the user's point of view. They have minimised
firefox as they are entitled and expected to do. They then later
select `get help online' and nothing happens. (NB that the user
probably has no idea that `get help online' is anything to do with
firefox.)

You may well be correct that firefox is behaving as intended but I
would argue the intent is wrong in at least this case. I don't have a
complete understanding of all of the relevant machinery and I'm not
arguing for any particular way of fixing this problem.

It may be that we need a new interface between other applications and
firefox, where another application can request that firefox be a bit
more vigorous about presenting the requested url.

Ian.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

On Mon, Mar 26, 2007 at 10:34:09AM -0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Alexander Sack writes ("Re: [Bug 94166] Get Help Online appears to do nothing if firefox minimised"):
> > For me this does not look like a bug. When you setup firefox to open
> > new pages in new tabs (which is the default for us), this is the
> > expected behaviour.
>
> ?!
>
> Think of this from the user's point of view. They have minimised
> firefox as they are entitled and expected to do. They then later
> select `get help online' and nothing happens. (NB that the user
> probably has no idea that `get help online' is anything to do with
> firefox.)
>
No point to argue ... i see the potential confusion.

> You may well be correct that firefox is behaving as intended but I
> would argue the intent is wrong in at least this case. I don't have a
> complete understanding of all of the relevant machinery and I'm not
> arguing for any particular way of fixing this problem.
>
> It may be that we need a new interface between other applications and
> firefox, where another application can request that firefox be a bit
> more vigorous about presenting the requested url.
>

Yes, I think the right way is to invoke firefox differently. I guess
it should be doable, but not with standard /usr/bin/firefox %s
command, which should still obey the settings (e.g. open in new tabs).

Anyway, lets say we get firefox to open a new window ... how tell
gnome that this window should go "to-front" ... as this will probably
confuse users as well. Any idea?

OK, we need to look into this in feisty+1. I take the bug for now.

 - Alexander
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[Ian Jackson (ijackson)]

Alexander Sack writes ("[Bug 94166] Re: Get Help Online appears to do nothing if firefox minimised"):
> OK, we need to look into this in feisty+1. I take the bug for now.

Thanks.

Is there anything we can quickly do for feisty that wouldn't have too
much collateral damage ?

Ian.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

On Mon, Mar 26, 2007 at 01:42:18PM -0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Alexander Sack writes ("[Bug 94166] Re: Get Help Online appears to do nothing if firefox minimised"):
> > OK, we need to look into this in feisty+1. I take the bug for now.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Is there anything we can quickly do for feisty that wouldn't have too
> much collateral damage ?

1st: I don't like to touch /usr/bin/firefox script ... so if we want
any fixes for this in they should be without /usr/bin/firefox script
modification.

OK, so here what i think would be safe for gnome and probably kde:

Maybe add an alternative: x-www-ubuntu-help-browser, which would
point to /usr/bin/firefox-open-url-in-new-window:

if test -n $(firefox -remote 'ping()'); then
 firefox http://www.google.com
else
 firefox -remote 'openURL(http://www.google.com, new-window)'
fi

of course with argument ... then we need to change all get help menu
entries to use that command. So smart solution might be to use a
different protocol handler in gnome/kde like:

newwindowhttp://host.tld/something ...

then we could bind that special script to that scheme handler and
s/newwindowhttp/http/ in firefox-open-url-in-new-window

However all this would require some thoughts on non-gnome/non-kde and
so might be too far reached for feisty.

If you have other ideas, let me know.

 - Alexander

[Ian Jackson (ijackson)]

Alexander Sack writes ("Re: [Bug 94166] Re: Get Help Online appears to do nothing if firefox minimised"):
> On Mon, Mar 26, 2007 at 01:42:18PM -0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > Is there anything we can quickly do for feisty that wouldn't have too
> > much collateral damage ?
>
> 1st: I don't like to touch /usr/bin/firefox script ... so if we want
> any fixes for this in they should be without /usr/bin/firefox script
> modification.

I wouldn't be so scared to edit that script. (I assume we're using
the one from the Debian package, right, not the crazy thing from
upstream?) I've edited it myself and I think I understand it well
enough to make changes.

But if you prefer to do it another way, that would be fine too.

> OK, so here what i think would be safe for gnome and probably kde:
...
> However all this would require some thoughts on non-gnome/non-kde and
> so might be too far reached for feisty.

It would be better to fix just gnome/kde than to do nothing, surely ?

I don't know how `Get Help Online' works. I will draw this bug to the
attention of seb128 and see what he says.

Ian.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

On Mon, Mar 26, 2007 at 03:33:38PM -0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Alexander Sack writes ("Re: [Bug 94166] Re: Get Help Online appears to do nothing if firefox minimised"):
> > On Mon, Mar 26, 2007 at 01:42:18PM -0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > > Is there anything we can quickly do for feisty that wouldn't have too
> > > much collateral damage ?
> >
> > 1st: I don't like to touch /usr/bin/firefox script ... so if we want
> > any fixes for this in they should be without /usr/bin/firefox script
> > modification.
>
> I wouldn't be so scared to edit that script. (I assume we're using
> the one from the Debian package, right, not the crazy thing from
> upstream?) I've edited it myself and I think I understand it well
> enough to make changes.
>
> But if you prefer to do it another way, that would be fine too.
>
> > OK, so here what i think would be safe for gnome and probably kde:
> ...
> > However all this would require some thoughts on non-gnome/non-kde and
> > so might be too far reached for feisty.
>
> It would be better to fix just gnome/kde than to do nothing, surely ?

Yes, but only if things don't break for others :).

 - Alexander

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

When using GNOME those menu items use "gnome-open URL" which uses the gconf key "/desktop/gnome/url-handlers/http/command" to know how to start the browser. We could easily change the launchpad-integration code to call "firefox -browser URI" if the default browser is firefox

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

On Mon, Mar 26, 2007 at 04:18:14PM -0000, Sebastien Bacher wrote:
> When using GNOME those menu items use "gnome-open URL" which uses the
> gconf key "/desktop/gnome/url-handlers/http/command" to know how to
> start the browser. We could easily change the launchpad-integration code
> to call "firefox -browser URI" if the default browser is firefox
>

Sorry, wouldn't this mean that all links will be opened that way?

 - Alexander

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

reassigning to launchpad-integration:

solution, use firefox -window url to always open new window

[Tollef Fog Heen (tfheen)]

Assigning to asac; please get this fixed for release.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Taking over the bug, I'm doing some launchpad-integration changes already

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

This upload fixes the bug:

 launchpad-integration (0.1.11) feisty; urgency=low
 .
   [ Sebastien Bacher ]
   * debian/liblaunchpad-integration0.install,
     lib/launchpad-integration.c, lib/lpint-bonobo.c, pixmaps/Makefile.am:
     - use themeable icon (Ubuntu: #51901, #40312)
   * lib/launchpad-integration.c, lib/lpint-bonobo.c:
     - list "Get Help Online" again, launchpad has been updated
       (Ubuntu: #103024)
   * launchpadintegration/urls.py:
     - special case firefox to open a new window (Ubuntu: #94166)
 .
   [ Martin Pitt ]
   * 'Report a Bug' -> 'Report a Problem' for consistency and avoiding the
     technical slang 'Bug'. Update the existing .po files. (LP: #93350)