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Missing .webloc drag-and-drop feature following v70

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  • آخرین پاسخ توسّط lacunosum

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Firefox historically supported the ability to drag and drop a ".webloc" file for the current website's address on macOS, but the feature has moved around between various updates and has been generally underdocumented.

User @GilDawson posted related questions looking for this feature following the v26 and v61 updates: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1231891 https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/983554

Based on this history, it can be inferred that the feature has been available at different times by dragging the green lock icon, by command-dragging the green lock icon, or by dragging the control center's information ('i') icon.

However, v70 introduced the site information panel, effectively replacing the control center, and nothing about the new panel appears to be draggable with or without modifier keys: https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2019/10/15/improved-security-and-privacy-indicators-in-firefox-70/ https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/site-information-panel

The current documentation for "creating a desktop shortcut" appears to describe the pre-v70 control center under Windows (with no customized article available for "Mac"): https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/create-desktop-shortcut-website

Like @GilDawson, I often used .weblocs in my workflows with Safari and this is now my only real pain point in transitioning to default use of Firefox. I have been launching Safari, pasting in web addresses, dragging out .weblocs from there, and then quitting Safari, which is kind of absurd.

(1) Does the .webloc feature exist in any form on macOS anymore? (2) If so, how is it activated? If not, what would be the best way to report the regression? (3) Should the "desktop shortcut" documentation be updated at some point?

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

Firefox historically supported the ability to drag and drop a ".webloc" file for the current website's address on macOS, but the feature has moved around between various updates and has been generally underdocumented. User @GilDawson posted related questions looking for this feature following the v26 and v61 updates: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1231891 https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/983554 Based on this history, it can be inferred that the feature has been available at different times by dragging the green lock icon, by command-dragging the green lock icon, or by dragging the control center's information ('i') icon. However, v70 introduced the site information panel, effectively replacing the control center, and nothing about the new panel appears to be draggable with or without modifier keys: https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2019/10/15/improved-security-and-privacy-indicators-in-firefox-70/ https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/site-information-panel The current documentation for "creating a desktop shortcut" appears to describe the pre-v70 control center under Windows (with no customized article available for "Mac"): https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/create-desktop-shortcut-website Like @GilDawson, I often used .weblocs in my workflows with Safari and this is now my only real pain point in transitioning to default use of Firefox. I have been launching Safari, pasting in web addresses, dragging out .weblocs from there, and then quitting Safari, which is kind of absurd. (1) Does the .webloc feature exist in any form on macOS anymore? (2) If so, how is it activated? If not, what would be the best way to report the regression? (3) Should the "desktop shortcut" documentation be updated at some point? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

Chosen solution

Of course, I mostly solved this as soon as I posted this question! Simply dragging the lock icon to a Finder window does in fact create the .webloc file. I had forgotten, in my zeal to replace macOS system apps, that I've been using ForkLift as a default replacement for Finder!

So I can confirm that dragging onto a ForkLift window does not, in fact, result in a .webloc file or anything else. I guess there is a question of whether the .webloc handling is an issue for Firefox (e.g., is Firefox hard-coded to drag only onto Finder windows?) or for ForkLift (e.g., it's missing whatever special sauce Finder uses to convert a dragged web-shortcut into a .webloc file). Regardless, I'm not completely sold on ForkLift anyway, so this is not a pressing question.

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Chosen Solution

Of course, I mostly solved this as soon as I posted this question! Simply dragging the lock icon to a Finder window does in fact create the .webloc file. I had forgotten, in my zeal to replace macOS system apps, that I've been using ForkLift as a default replacement for Finder!

So I can confirm that dragging onto a ForkLift window does not, in fact, result in a .webloc file or anything else. I guess there is a question of whether the .webloc handling is an issue for Firefox (e.g., is Firefox hard-coded to drag only onto Finder windows?) or for ForkLift (e.g., it's missing whatever special sauce Finder uses to convert a dragged web-shortcut into a .webloc file). Regardless, I'm not completely sold on ForkLift anyway, so this is not a pressing question.

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Notably, dragging from Safari to ForkLift works just fine. Thus, the only combination of (Safari, FF)→(Finder, FL) that doesn't work is FF→FL. It seems likely that Firefox exclusively supports Finder as a drag destination.