ports/68432: Mozilla remote functions not working with Firefox (0.9_3 and _4) any more

[Andreas Ntaflos]

>Number:         68432
>Category:       ports
>Synopsis:       Mozilla remote functions not working with Firefox (0.9_3 and _4) any more
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       low
>Responsible:    freebsd-ports-bugs
>State:          open
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Sun Jun 27 20:10:27 GMT 2004
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Andreas Ntaflos
>Release:        FreeBSD 4.10-STABLE
>Organization:
>Environment:
FreeBSD Pelargir.arda 4.10-STABLE FreeBSD 4.10-STABLE #2: Sun Jun 20 14:15:06 CEST 2004     root at Pelargir.arda:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/PELARGIR  i386
>Description:
Up to Firefox 0.8 (from ports) the Mozilla remote functions (using "firefox -remote" from the commandline) worked nicely and allowed, for example, checking whether an instance of Firefox was running or to pass URLs to a running instance to be opened in a new tab (useful with instant messangers such as LICQ). The remote functions are desribed here: http://www.mozilla.org/unix/remote.html

Examples:

To check if Firefox is running:
firefox -remote "ping()"

To open the URL www.freebsd.org in a new tab:
firefox -remote "openurl(http://www.freebsd.org, new-tab)"

This does not work anymore as of (apparently) firefox 0.9_3 and _4, not sure if it worked with 0.9 itself. Trying the ping() function results in an error message:

> firefox -remote "ping()"

Error: No running window found

The same for -openurl(URL, new-tab):
> firefox -remote "openurl(http://www.freebsd.org, new-tab)"

Error: No running window found
>How-To-Repeat:
Just use one of the remote functions, for example

firefox -remote "openurl(http://www.freebsd.org, new-tab)"
>Fix:
      
>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: