Administrivia: Google redirect
I'm a little confused by this edit summary. I don't see why you can't manually edit the URL (with appropriate unescaping) to point directly to the real target. If you want to warn readers that it is a PDF file, shouldn't text be added to the footnote to specify that explicitly? Was the original motivation that some browsers may be configured to always open PDFs externally, preventing the URL from being copypasted out of the address bar?
Admittedly, I'm unfamiliar with the operation of the Google redirector, as I steadfastly refuse to touch it. Does it display a warning message for PDFs instead of just issuing HTTP 3xx? Eighty5cacao 10:17, 27 April 2012 (MST)
- It just issues 3xx. The problem is that Firefox displays the final, unescaped URL in the location bar only if the chain of 3xx ends up at something that Firefox knows how to display, and I don't feel like installing Adobe Reader just to get in-browser PDF display. Nor did I feel confident in my ability to manually unescape the URL, given that it already appeared to have some double escaping. I had to do this in IDLE's Python Shell:
from urlparse import parse_qs
qs = "sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=10&ved=0CGwQFjAJ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.uio.no%2Fstudier%2Femner%2Fhf%2Fikos%2FEXFAC03-AAS%2Fh05%2Flarestoff%2Flinguistics%2FChapter%25204.(H05).pdf&ei=KoqaT-CJHczMtgfI67GnBA&usg=AFQjCNGzeZauTAxCzTHA5xSdqhzWatOBHg&sig2=mUHX1EfNInWfySX7YxuB1Q"
print parse_qs(qs)['url'][0]
- --Tepples 11:28, 27 April 2012 (MST)
- Conflict-of-interest declaration: My computer has Adobe Reader pre-installed by the OEM. Were I to set up a new Windows computer that did not have Adobe Reader preinstalled, though, I would probably use Sumatra PDF (not Foxit Reader - but that discussion belongs elsewhere).
- The MoS should eventually say something about Google redirector links. But no hurry. Eighty5cacao 13:58, 27 April 2012 (MST)
- For what it's worth, pdf.js uses JavaScript and HTML5 within the browser. I don't use it because it doesn't work correctly with my school's Blackboard system, though. Eighty5cacao 11:48, 28 April 2012 (MST)
- Sumatra? Thanks for the tip. --Tepples 11:56, 28 April 2012 (MST)
- ...and I did eventually replace Adobe Reader with Sumatra PDF on my computer and another in my family. --Eighty5cacao (talk) 04:57, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
- ←
And now I'm using PDF.js, which fixes copying URLs because it turns PDF into "something that Firefox knows how to display". --Tepples (talk) 00:32, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
- Assuming you mean standard Firefox rather than the Tor Browser Bundle or other third-party build, pdf.js should be a built-in feature; if you still have it installed as an addon, I'd like to hear why. Anyway, Clean Links and Redirect Bypasser could also be helpful, but I guess that's kind of moot now. --Eighty5cacao (talk) 01:29, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
- I don't know. I installed it before it became bundled. When I disable it in Add-ons Manager, PDF links from Google automatically get routed to Downloads; when I reenable it, PDFs again show up in a browser tab. --Tepples (talk) 01:47, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
- Does Options → Applications → Portable Document Format (PDF) offer a "Preview in Firefox" option when the addon is disabled? If not, I'm not sure how else to help. --Eighty5cacao (talk) 03:03, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
- I checked, and it's set to "Preview in Firefox", but with PDF.js disabled, I get a download. I've read that Firefox as distributed in the Ubuntu repository is technically a "third-party build" for which Canonical has licensed the trademarks. But I see no actionable problem here, as I still get the correct final URL now. --Tepples (talk) 04:14, 9 December 2013 (UTC)