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Bug 248425 - hyperlinks should show target URL as a tooltip
hyperlinks should show target URL as a tooltip
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX
Product: GtkHtml
Classification: Other
Component: Rendering
4.8.x
Other All
: Normal enhancement
: ---
Assigned To: gtkhtml-maintainers
gtkhtml-maintainers
gnome[unmaintained]
Depends on:
Blocks: 341452
 
 
Reported: 2003-09-12 11:36 UTC by alan
Modified: 2017-02-09 13:37 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---



Description alan 2003-09-12 11:36:59 UTC
Description of Problem:

Evolution blindly trusts the text body to provide URL data in HTML email.
This allows someone to send messages that look like one site but visit
another, or which contain concealled tracking data.

This is becoming a common path for identity theft and for spammers to
validate addresses, along with picture tracking (which evolution already
stops nicely)

IMHO evo really should be

1. Putting the real URL as a tooltip of each clickable link
2. If the text of the <A>text</A> section contains a string that is in URL
style format but does not match the href=".." string it should print both -
eg ( http://www.ebay.com(http://www.evilscam.com?id=54379)

This would markedly improve the safety of Evolution to end users.
Comment 1 André Klapper 2004-10-24 22:33:50 UTC
running
gtkhtml3.1-3.2.2.0.200410061620-0.snap.ximian.8.1
libgtkhtml3.1_11-3.2.2.0.200410061620-0.snap.ximian.8.1
evolution1.5-2.0.1.0.200410061620-0.snap.ximian.8.1 on suse9.0:

first one (showing a tooltip) still missing when viewing an email in 
the preview pane in evolution, second one solved (only href location 
is shown in the status bar).
therefore changing summary to "hyperlinks should show target URL as a 
tooltip".
Comment 2 André Klapper 2005-07-16 12:48:46 UTC
so this is about the *rendering*, bug 225722 is about the *rendering*.

same as per last comment in 3.7.4.
Comment 3 Rohini 2006-02-21 05:29:21 UTC
The exact URL is already displayed in status bar. Why should it also be displayed as a tooltip?
Comment 4 André Klapper 2006-02-21 09:13:52 UTC
...because my status bar is mostly miles away from my current cursor and ear position. ;-)
naaa....fair point, indeed.
Comment 5 André Klapper 2006-02-21 09:20:55 UTC
garr.... "ear" should have been "eye". too early. need coffee.
Comment 6 alan 2006-02-21 11:56:27 UTC
Back in 2003 it didn't appear there either to my knowledge. Also it isn't a tooltip that is needed but as the original suggests putting the actual URL clearly visible if it does not match the text it is attached to.  People will miss a tooltip but won't miss

     Contact Paypal Immediately <http://www.youare0wnz3D.org/>

Thats probably not the right behaviour for web browsing but IMHO  is for evolution
Comment 7 André Klapper 2006-02-21 18:10:20 UTC
uh, right - it's a bit of a phishing protection. hmm... also see bug 256160.
Comment 8 André Klapper 2006-02-21 18:16:47 UTC
in 2.5 one can hide the status bar. therefore i would really recommend to get this in for evolution 2.6. it's a security concern to me.
Comment 9 Matthew Barnes 2008-03-11 01:03:23 UTC
Bumping version to a stable release.
Comment 10 André Klapper 2012-03-30 18:38:19 UTC
Still valid in 4.5.1-pre with WebKit rendering.
dvratil, would this be easily implementable?
Comment 11 Dan Vrátil 2012-04-10 15:14:09 UTC
Not trivially - when there's no "title" attribute in the <a> tag, WebKit won't display the tooltip on it's own and manual DOM manipulation is not worth the effort, because URL of the link is displayed in the status bar though, which I think is sufficient.
Comment 12 Matthew Barnes 2012-04-10 15:46:41 UTC
On a related note, perhaps EWebView could benefit from an overlayed status bar for showing target URLs and other pointer hovering tooltips similar to the way Epiphany works now.

The EWebView status bar could be switched off when packed in a main window and the main window's own task bar is visible.  But it would allow us to drop the always-on status bar in the message window and also show tooltips for the first time ever in the composer window.
Comment 13 Matthew Barnes 2012-04-10 15:48:24 UTC
I should have mentioned GtkOverlay is of course the key to this.
Comment 14 André Klapper 2014-12-02 00:57:07 UTC
Still valid in Evolution 3.12.8
Comment 15 André Klapper 2017-02-09 13:37:54 UTC
GtkHtml is not under active development anymore. 
Evolution (its main consumer) switched to a WebKit backend a while ago. 
It is currently unlikely that there will be any further GtkHtml development.

Closing this report as WONTFIX as part of Bugzilla Housekeeping (bug 778387) to reflect reality. Please feel free to reopen this bug report in the future if anyone takes the responsibility for active development again.