Evolution, Thunderbird and Firefox should follow \\smb links

[SK]

Emails from windows users in the corporate setting often include links to files on windows servers. Linux users should be able to operate transparently in this space. So in outlook if I drag in a link to a file in an email you get a hyber link like this: "\\servername\path\to\file\file.ext". When receiving such an email I have to edit to "smb://servername/path/to/file/" and paste into nautilus or konquorer. The client (Evolution, Thunderbird and Firefox) should follow those links transparently to the user (i.e. click/open).

On the composing side if I drag in a link from nautilus I get "smb://servername/path/to/file/file.ext" that should get changed to "\\servername\path\to\file\file.ext" so as to be universally usable.

[Matti-mversen (matti-mversen)]

It doesn't work because such a link violates several rfc rules.
"\" is not allowed in an URL, you have no protocol in front.

A correct unc link is for example: file://///server/share/file

makring wontfix

[SK (skiani)]

Emails from windows users in the corporate setting often include links to files on windows servers. Linux users should be able to operate transparently in this space. So in outlook if I drag in a link to a file in an email you get a hyber link like this: "\\servername\path\to\file\file.ext". When receiving such an email I have to edit to "smb://servername/path/to/file/" and paste into nautilus or konquorer. The client (Evolution, Thunderbird and Firefox) should follow those links transparently to the user (i.e. click/open).

On the composing side if I drag in a link from nautilus I get "smb://servername/path/to/file/file.ext" that should get changed to "\\servername\path\to\file\file.ext" so as to be universally usable.

[Jgoguen+mozillabugs (jgoguen+mozillabugs)]

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.0.6) Gecko/2009020519 Ubuntu/9.04 (jaunty) Firefox/3.0.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.1b3pre) Gecko/20090220 Lightning/1.0pre Shredder/3.0b3pre

Emails from windows users in the corporate setting often include links to files on windows servers. Linux users should be able to operate transparently in this space. So in outlook if I drag in a link to a file in an email you get a hyper link like this:
"\\servername\path\to\file\file.ext"

When receiving such an email I have to edit the link to "smb://servername/path/to/file/" and paste into Nautilus. Thunderbird should follow those links transparently to the user.

On the composing side, if I drag in a link from Nautilus I get "smb://servername/path/to/file/file.ext" which should get changed to "\\servername\path\to\file\file.ext" so as to be universally usable.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Receive an email containing a link in the form: \\servername\path\to\file\file.ext
Actual Results:
When receiving, the link is not clickable, and it is not in a form recognized by Nautilus or Dolphin. When sending, the link is not converted into the form expected by Windows clients.

Expected Results:
When receiving, the link should be able to be opened by clicking on it, regardless of whether it's "smb://servername/path/to/file/file.ext" or "\\servername\path\to\file\file.ext". When sending, links should be converted to the latter format so Windows clients can also use them as-is.

[Joel Goguen (jgoguen)]

Thank you for your bug report. I can confirm that this is an issue in the latest development release. This bug has been reported to the developers of the software. You can track it and make comments at: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=480557

[Kevin Brosnan (kbrosnan)]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 73003 ***

[Kevin Brosnan (kbrosnan)]

Not a dupe 73003.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please answer these questions:

 * Is this reproducible?
 * If so, what specific steps should we take to recreate this bug?

 This will help us to find and resolve the problem.

[Joel Goguen (jgoguen)]

I can also confirm this for Firefox 3.0.6+nobinonly-0ubuntu1 in Jaunty. To reproduce, create a test page (test.html) that has a link in each form (\\server\path\to\file and smb://server/path/to/file). Note that the first form will link to a file relative to the same directory as test.html, while the second form will correctly form a SMB link. Following these steps, this is reproducible every time.

[Jgoguen+mozillabugs (jgoguen+mozillabugs)]

Created attachment 365312
Web page demonstrating the bug in Firefox

This is also a problem in Firefox. I'm not sure if that makes this bug against Core or something else, but putting links of either form in a web page and viewing with Firefox does not work as expected. Links in the form \\servername\path\to\file\file.ext are converted to HTTP links relative to the current web page directory, and links of the form smb://servername/path/to/file/file.ext are displayed as SMB links, but clicking them does nothing.

[Joel Goguen (jgoguen)]

This is also a problem for Evolution 2.25.92-0ubuntu1. If you receive an email with links in either form (\\server\path\to\file and smb://server/path/to/file), Evolution does not display them as links. They are displayed simply as plain text.

[Bugzilla-flamber (bugzilla-flamber)]

As I see, there's 3 different bugs:
1. Make UNC-paths clickable (hmmm....maybe bug 379337)
2. Nautilus links are SMB instead of UNC (bug 378425)
3. smb:// links in Firefox doesn't work (probably bug 84128 or bug 122022)

[Michael Rooney (mrooney)]

Triaging thunderbird since we have an upstream link, and setting to Low.

[Joel Goguen (jgoguen)]

Upstream believes that the Firefox and Thunderbird components may actually comprise three existing Mozilla bugs:

1. Make UNC-paths clickable (maybe Mozilla 379337)
2. Nautilus links are SMB instead of UNC (Mozilla 378425)
3. smb:// links in Firefox doesn't work (either Mozilla 84128 or Mozilla 122022)

[Michael Rooney (mrooney)]

Thanks Joel, I added an upstream link for the Firefox issue; the second one you pointed out seems to be it. However they don't seem to think that is valid behavior as those aren't valid addresses. A workaround would be to create a greasemonkey script that transforms these URLs universally. It could probably even be shipped in Ubuntu if we determine this is useful behavior in a non-ideal world.

[Joel Goguen (jgoguen)]

This bug has also been reported upstream to GNOME for Evolution. It may be tracked at http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=498195

[Stephen Gallagher (stephen-gallagherhome)]

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.1b3pre) Gecko/20090324

I can reproduce this issue on the above version.

[Ludovic-mozillamessaging (ludovic-mozillamessaging)]

(In reply to comment #4)

> 3. smb:// links in Firefox doesn't work (probably bug 84128 or bug 122022)

Hansen why did you not dup it to those ?

[Bugzilla-flamber (bugzilla-flamber)]

Because I didn't know which one to dupe as. I was hoping Joel would resolve it.

[Ludovic-mozillamessaging (ludovic-mozillamessaging)]

Joel if you think this is incorrect please reopen.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 84128 ***

[Jgoguen+mozillabugs (jgoguen+mozillabugs)]

I'm honestly not certain which one I would dupe this as, so I'll happily accept this. I've got some ideas I'll submit to bug 84128 later tonight.

[Ali-ebrahim (ali-ebrahim)]

How can a Thunderbird bug be duped to a Seamonkey bug? Are you sure?

[Ludovic-mozillamessaging (ludovic-mozillamessaging)]

(In reply to comment #10)
> How can a Thunderbird bug be duped to a Seamonkey bug? Are you sure?

Right got confused by the title of bug 122022

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 122022 ***

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

why is the firefox and thunderbird task still open?

[Jörg Frings-Fürst (jff-de)]

bug from 2008. Version not more supported.
change status to invalid.