Talk:How Firefox Works

Login box detection

Ideally this would go under How Firefox Works/Password Manager. Origins of this request are totally from IRC:

<Tom> can someone test this in thunderbird 3 on windows so we can mark it as fixed or invalid or something: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=318584

<firebot> Tom: Bug 318584 nor, --, ---, nobody@mozilla.org, NEW, Can not subscribe to livejournal rss feed after upgrade to 1.5 RC3
<Tom> gavin_: Hey, is there a document somewhere detailing how Firefox decides to save a password for autofill? Does it look for forms with a type="password"? How does it figure out what the login is, or does it just save everything? I seem to remember some sites where it would autofill the previous captcha because it saved that too.
<gavin_> I can point you to the function that does it, if you want
<gavin_> it's in JS
<gavin_> that code changed in Firefox 3
<gavin_> I don't know of any docs
<gavin_> http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/components/passwordmgr/src/nsLoginManager.js#749
<gavin_> the major change between firefox 2 and firefox 3 is that we no longer use form element names to determine whether a password should be filled in
<gavin_> instead it just finds sequences of elements that look like a log in form
<gavin_> http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/components/passwordmgr/src/nsLoginManager.js#957 is the autofill code that's called when you load a page with a form
<Tom> gavin_: http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45492 sound about right? i remember that 'no autofill' shit pissing people off
<gavin_> form fill and password manager are distinct - once the password manager takes over a form field autocomplete ignores it
<Tom> so password manager ignores the direction to not save?
<gavin_> Tom: that person probably just wants to use https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/forms.html#remember_password
<Tom> gavin_: just trying to figure out why this guy's got issues: http://getsatisfaction.com/mozilla/topics/my_firefox_isnt_saving_passwords_and_its_supposed_to_be_remembering_them
<Tom> gavin_: mac-forums was just a google result
<gavin_> that forum thread is just the guy trying to log in to sites with autocomplete=off
<gavin_> which we do obey
<gavin_> (yahoo does it)
<Tom> yeah, i saw that mentioned
<gavin_> I don't see why it wouldn't work on myspace
<gavin_> works for me
<gavin_> he might have a broken profile or something
<Tom> gavin_: k, thx
<Tom> i know you're not support, i usually ask lucy that, but the question for doxx evolved
<Tom> gavin_: Are there plans for docs on How Firefox Works, or could I perhaps start such a project?
<gavin_> heh, I can answer questions even if I'm "not support"
<gavin_> especially about pwmgr since I reviewed it
<Tom> gavin_: i mainly say that so you don't get pissy about how it's not your job or something?
<Tom> ah
<gavin_> I'm not going to get pissy about someone asking me a question
<gavin_> worst case I just won't answer :)
<gavin_> I don't know of any plans for "How Firefox Works" docs aimed at end users

<gavin_> there's MDC for developer docs of course

--Me at work 05:53, 11 September 2008 (UTC)