thunderbird opens pdf links (urls) in firefox and not directly in evince

[liorda]

Binary package hint: thunderbird

I'm getting many emails with links to pdf files (such as "http://domain.com/document.pdf").

expected behavior:
when clicking on the link, thunderbird should know this is pdf file and open evince (or any other pdf viewer) itself.

current behavior:
thunderbird opens firefox with the link location. firefox then asks me to open/save the pdf file.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Fri May 23 17:55:11 2008
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.04
Package: mozilla-thunderbird 2.0.0.14+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LC_TIME=en_DK
 PATH=/home/username/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: thunderbird
Uname: Linux 2.6.24-16-generic i686

[Polera (j-remash)]

This seems to be the correct response when clicking a hyperlink.

[liorda (liorda)]

it may be the correct response, but a "smarter" Thunderbird would just download the pdf / image file and open the appropriate program, without involving any other, unneeded application.

could anyone please tag this bug as an feature request?

thank.

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

liorda wrote:
> it may be the correct response, but a "smarter" Thunderbird would just
> download the pdf / image file and open the appropriate program, without
> involving any other, unneeded application.
>
> could anyone please tag this bug as an feature request?
>
> thank.
>
I am but please file this bug upstream and drop the link to upstream bug
on this bug report so we can track it. this is one of those things that
upstream would need to add.

--
Sincerely Yours,
     John Vivirito

https://launchpad.net/~gnomefreak
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JohnVivirito
Linux User# 414246

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

Please leave incomplete until we hear what upstream will do once you find the bug upstream or report it I will think of best used status at that time. I would rather not use confirm as that is used once upstream has decided to add this feature or atleast look into it. but first things first. I will advance to confirmed once filed and move to triaged once upstream decides I think

[liorda (liorda)]

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9b5) Gecko/2008050509 Firefox/3.0b5
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9b5) Gecko/2008050509 Firefox/3.0b5

I'm getting many emails with links to pdf files (such as "http://domain.com/document.pdf").

thunderbird open the default browser when *all* urls are clicked, regardless of the actual filetype. when the linked file type is not text/html, opening the browser is unnecessary.

This happens also with links to images, and all other filestypes that are located on the web.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. send yourself a message with a link to a pdf file in the body (such as http://domain.com/doc/pdf).
2. get the message from your mail server.
3. click on the link from the thunderbird's message pane.

Actual Results:
thunderbird opens firefox with the link location. firefox then asks me to open/save the pdf file.

Expected Results:
when clicking on the link, thunderbird should know this is pdf file and open the default application for pdf viewing itself.

it may be the correct response, but a "smarter" Thunderbird would just download the pdf / image file (to a temporary location?) and open the appropriate program, without involving any other, unneeded application.

[liorda (liorda)]

i just filled a bug upstream.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=436256

[Rsx11m-pub (rsx11m-pub)]

A link starting with "http:" is (correctly) referred to the browser application. Thunderbird itself is able to issue HTTP requests, e.g., for remote image content. Now one can conclude that it should be possible to directly resolve that link, but it's a bit more complicated than you may think:

 - the link may end in ".pdf", but this doesn't guarantee that the server
   will actually send application/pdf back (it may be just a download page);

 - the server may request authentication, what should Thunderbird do then?

So, what you are requesting would imply that Thunderbird resolves the HTTP link itself first, connect to the server, and verifies that what it gets back actually represents something different than a web page or authentication request. Then, it would be treated like an attachment based on the stated MIME type, downloaded to /tmp and opened with the registered application.

That functionality exists already in the SeaMonkey suite, which combines various applications (including mail and browser) into one. For Thunderbird, given that it is primarily a mail/news/feeds application, the question is how much browser "intelligence" should be provided beyond remote content.

[Ludovic-mozillamessaging (ludovic-mozillamessaging)]

*** Bug 530501 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[gf (gf-interlinks-deactivatedaccount)]

Hello Liorda,
Thank you for submitting this bug and reporting a problem with Thunderbird. You made this bug report in 2008 and there have been several versions of Ubuntu and Thunderbird since then.

Could you confirm that this is no longer a problem and that we can close the ticket?
If it is still a problem, are you still interested in finding a solution to this bug?
If you are, could you let us know and, in the current version, could you run the following (only once):
apport-collect 234349
and upload the updated logs and and any other logs that are relevant for this particular issue.

Thank you again for helping make Ubuntu and Thunderbird better.
G

[Paul White (paulw2u)]

Further to comment #10, where no information was provided, a test using
Thunderbird 60.8 and Ubuntu 18.04 shows that there has been no progress
on this request. So reverting status back to "New".

[Kvkimona1996 (kvkimona1996)]

Created attachment 9385421
same problem

Thanks from eleximthi1982.