:Gavin Sharp [email: gavin@gavinsharp.com] Assignee
	Description • 13 years ago

I'd like to make the following changes to nsISidebar, as a precursor to bug 518929:

1) remove the add*Panel methods, since they are not standardized, rarely used, and not very well supported
2) fix the method signatures to avoid the use of string/wstring in favor of DOMString

1) is hopefully not a significant web compat hit (no other browsers implement these, AFAIK). It's a Netscape-era API, and while there are undoubtedly some legitimate users, we'd like to get rid of the front-end support for the sidebar feature entirely, and so this would be a first step towards that.

Given that the only implementations I know of are in JS, and that it is quite unlikely that there are any native code implementations, I think 2) shouldn't be a problem either.

	:Gavin Sharp [email: gavin@gavinsharp.com] Assignee
	Comment 1 • 13 years ago

I don't know who should review this, really...

	:Gavin Sharp [email: gavin@gavinsharp.com] Assignee
	Comment 3 • 13 years ago

SeaMonkey also has an implementation, I'll file a separate bug on that.

http://mxr.mozilla.org/comm-central/source/suite/common/src/nsSidebar.js

	:Gavin Sharp [email: gavin@gavinsharp.com] Assignee
	Comment 4 • 13 years ago

Hmm, interesting that HTML 5 doesn't spec window.sidebar at all. We should probably consider getting rid of it entirely at some point - I think the only prominent user at this point might be http://mycroft.mozdev.org/ , and even they have OpenSearch and window.external support now :)

	:Ms2ger (he/him; ⌚ UTC+1/+2)
	Comment 5 • 13 years ago

Comment on attachment 564443 [details] [diff] [review]
interface changes

While you're here, want to add a link to <http://www.whatwg.org/html/#the-external-interface>?

	Mycroft Project (CC)
	Comment 6 • 13 years ago

(In reply to Gavin Sharp (use gavin@gavinsharp.com for email) from comment #4)
> Hmm, interesting that HTML 5 doesn't spec window.sidebar at all. We should
> probably consider getting rid of it entirely at some point - I think the
> only prominent user at this point might be http://mycroft.mozdev.org/ , and
> even they have OpenSearch and window.external support now :)

Thanks for flagging.
Is there an alternative to window.sidebar(.addSearchEngine) for Sherlock?
It's a while since I looked properly but:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Adding_search_engines_from_web_pages
still says use window.sidebar.addSearchEngine

I vaguely remember discussing adding Sherlock engines with addSearchProvider but that'll make the capability detection more difficult.

Anyway, this isn't really relevant to this bug. Please CC me if there's a bug for complete removal of window.sidebar

	:Gavin Sharp [email: gavin@gavinsharp.com] Assignee
	Comment 7 • 13 years ago

(In reply to Charles Caygill from comment #6)
> Anyway, this isn't really relevant to this bug. Please CC me if there's a
> bug for complete removal of window.sidebar

Will do!

	Johnny Stenback (:jst)
	Comment 8 • 13 years ago

Comment on attachment 564443 [details] [diff] [review]
interface changes

I'm all for cleaning this up and minimizing what we expose here, and I'd be in favor of removing this entirely too, but that would require some more investigation as to who would be affected by that change etc.

	Justin Dolske [:Dolske]
	Comment 9 • 13 years ago

Comment on attachment 564444 [details] [diff] [review]
firefox implementation changes

Review of attachment 564444 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Kill it with fire. Laparoscopically.

	Manuel Reimer
	Comment 11 • 13 years ago

Will there be *any* way left for websites to provide a sidebar addition to users?

So far, there still is the alternative with a <a> node, but if this gets removed, too:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=692731#c11

then there is no way left to provide, for example, a newsticker or something like that to the user for open it in sidebar. To get this into sidebar, the user would have to open the link first, bookmark it and set checkbox "open in sidebar". Then click that link.

	:Gavin Sharp [email: gavin@gavinsharp.com] Assignee
	Comment 12 • 13 years ago

I'm planning to remove the sidebar from Firefox entirely eventually, so no, there won't be any way to trigger loading things there. But please don't turn this bug into a fight about sidebars, that debate can be had later :)

	Johnny Stenback (:jst)
	Comment 13 • 12 years ago

Gavin, did this ever land? If not, would now be a good time to land it?

	:Gavin Sharp [email: gavin@gavinsharp.com] Assignee
	Comment 14 • 12 years ago

I don't remember why this didn't land. I'd certainly welcome someone picking it up and unbitrotting the patches.

	:Cykesiopka
	Comment 15 • 11 years ago

Unbitrotted.

	:Cykesiopka
	Comment 16 • 11 years ago

Unbitrotted.

	:Cykesiopka
	Comment 17 • 11 years ago

(In reply to Cykesiopka from comment #15)
> Created attachment 731390 [details] [diff] [review]
> Part 1: Interface Changes
> 
> Unbitrotted.

(In reply to Cykesiopka from comment #16)
> Created attachment 731391 [details] [diff] [review]
> Part 2: Firefox Implementation Changes
> 
> Unbitrotted.

Actually, do these need re-reviews?

	:Gavin Sharp [email: gavin@gavinsharp.com] Assignee
	Comment 18 • 11 years ago

No, I don't think so. Thanks for reviving this bug!

	:Gavin Sharp [email: gavin@gavinsharp.com] Assignee
	Comment 19 • 11 years ago

We will need to file followups to remove the dead code from the mobile/ and metro/ versions of this component, though.

	:Gavin Sharp [email: gavin@gavinsharp.com] Assignee
	Comment 20 • 11 years ago

Oh, we already have one for mobile (bug 692894, with a patch even). Just metro, then.

	:Gavin Sharp [email: gavin@gavinsharp.com] Assignee
	Comment 21 • 11 years ago

https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-inbound/rev/3f2095fd4fc9
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-inbound/rev/bcdc2f3743f9

	Ed Morley [:emorley]
	Comment 22 • 11 years ago

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/3f2095fd4fc9
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/bcdc2f3743f9

	Kohei Yoshino [:kohei]
	Comment 23 • 11 years ago

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox/Releases/23
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Site_Compatibility_for_Firefox_23
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/DOM/window.sidebar

	Seb A
	Comment 24 • 11 years ago

Thanks for breaking our web app (http://syntec.co.uk/index.php?p=ibagentandhomeworkers%20system) with this change: we use JavaScript to add a sidebar panel.  Is there any alternative?

	Sandra Seilamann
	Comment 25 • 11 years ago

I'd like to second Seb A here as well. Removing the add*Panel methods is breaking our web app as well. Thanks alot.

	Seb A
	Comment 26 • 11 years ago

It looks like a solution might be to use the new Social API (available to all web sites from Firefox 23.0 - the same release that removes Sidebars).  However, the documentation is poor for newbies!  I would be grateful if someone could provide content for the missing (red) links in https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Social_API and finish https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Social_API/Guide
Thanks!

	:Gavin Sharp [email: gavin@gavinsharp.com] Assignee
	Comment 27 • 11 years ago

Apologies for the breakage. Social API would indeed be a better alternative for this, we're working on trying to improve the documentation.

	Kohei Yoshino [:kohei]
	Comment 28 • 11 years ago

Added a mention of alternatives:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Site_Compatibility_for_Firefox_23#DOM