Enable Users to Automatically Launch Executables
Detailed Description
I think it is preferable to pose an extra dialog in this case (rather than add wording to the current dialog that could be too easily missed by the user).
The implementation should be easy enough. Currently, the code checks that the file and disables "Launch" if it is executable. Instead, we'd just wire that button so that it opened another "Are you sure?" dialog whose "Yes" button did the launch.
There is one other situation: clicking on a link to an executable. Currently, that goes straight to the file picker (and then the download progress dialog). If we're going to permit launching applications, we should also permit that to happen "directly" (i.e., download and run from temporary location without prompting the user for a destination). This change would require a tweak to the code that currently bypasses the "unknown content type dialog" and the insertion of similar "verify before launch" logic, as described above, in that dialog (at the point where the user chooses to "open" the content).
Tasks
- Implement new "Launch dialog" (basically, a simple prompt). 1 day
- Change download progress dialog so that "Launch" opens this new dialog, so that it doesn't automagically make the "Save to Disk" decision for the user, and, 1 day so that it puts up the confirmation dialog before "opening" executable content. 2 days
Issues
- Need to get signoff on this from other interested parties (i.e., "Security"); I know Mitch Stoltz expressed some misgivings about such warning dialogs when we put the current behavior in place in 6.1. There there was this new "nimba" virus.