Comment 22 for bug 1065126

(In reply to comment #11)
> bug 236541 comment 40 - this is about helper apps that view the content inline,
> which isn't the same as "Open in app" which launches an external application
>
> bug 236541 comment 102 - this is about files which are downloaded to a temp
> directory, used by a helper app which views the content inline, and then
> deleted
>
> bug 236541 comment 107 - OSX downloads now default to the Downloads directory,
> and seems to also be related to a common request to have PDFs viewed inline
>
> In all these cases, I'd be fine if the files served with content-disposition:
> attachment were *not* handled by helper apps (which I see as equivalent to
> "view in browser") but rather forced to be downloaded and handled by external
> apps.

The "helper apps" bz is referring to in comments 40 and 102 and what you call "external apps" are the same thing. They are distinct from plugins, which show content inline in the browser. Boris is talking about external apps that won't let you save the file while you're viewing it, which, due to the fact that we delete temp files after they've been used, means that there's no way to ensure that users are able to save the file (i.e. treat it like an attachment).

(The fact that we don't delete temp files on Mac, and save them on the Desktop by default, means that he is less concerned about allowing automatically opening the files in helper apps on Mac. This is what comment 107 is about.)

I'm not sure that I buy his argument, because I can't really think of any apps that don't let you save a copy the file once it's opened (e.g. "Save as").