Open links in the browser for every click gesture, not just a plain click

[amitraj2203]

Why

Middle-clicking the site link, wp-admin or Adminer opens the site inside an app window with no address bar and no back button. Only closing it gets you out. See #284.

Each link cancels its own navigation in onClick. A middle click fires auxclick, which a click handler never sees, so Chromium's "open in a new window" default runs.

What changes

src/window-links.js denies window creation and http/https navigation on the app window, and sends the address to the system browser instead. One place, so every link is covered including new ones.

file: navigation is left alone on purpose. The app's own page is a file: URL and blocking it stops location.reload().

The links keep their onClick handlers. They're redundant now, but removing seven of them is a separate change.

How to test this

Platforms: any. Needs a mouse with a clickable scroll wheel; macOS trackpads have no middle button.

Starting state: a site that has finished setting up.

1. Start the app, select the site, click Start dev server.
2. Wait for the site URL, wp-admin and DB inspect (Adminer) links. The app opens the site in your browser on its own here, so close that tab.
3. Middle-click the site URL. It opens in your browser.
4. Middle-click wp-admin, then DB inspect (Adminer). Both open in the browser. Adminer's address should still have its full query string, or it lands on a broken page.
5. Plain-click and Cmd/Ctrl-click all three. Same as before, they open in the browser.

What must not have happened:

• No window of the app shows the WordPress site. That's the bug.
• The app window still shows the site page, not WordPress.
• No link does nothing at all.

For the old behaviour, check out trunk and repeat steps 1-3.

Risks and limitations

Cmd/Ctrl+click is not affected by this bug, though #284 says it is. Chromium sends it as a normal click, so the existing preventDefault() catches it. I tested all four gestures on trunk: only middle click reproduces. Worth knowing before testing, or the gesture the issue names looks like it disproves the fix.

The review found three separate bugs sitting next to this code. They're listed below and left alone.

Related

Fixes #284

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Review outcome (required — see AGENTS.md)

Lint clean. npm test and npm run test:electron both 1034 pass.

Fixed: an empty catch in the new module swallowed a failed openExternal.

Not fixed, all pre-existing and none caused by this change:

• The app window can be navigated off its own page by a file: or page-relative link. One route is the email body at index.jsx:5551, rendered with dangerouslySetInnerHTML. Trunk has no guard on this window at all. If you fix it, note that blocking every navigation breaks location.reload(), so the exemption has to be the current URL.
• openExternalUrl has no way to report a failed open, and lets the rejection propagate into a renderer that catches nothing at 23 call sites. So a click on an address the OS can't open is a link that did nothing, with nothing in the log.
• The wire isn't tested. Delete the openLinksExternally call and the suite stays green. test/ipc-wiring.test.cjs can't reach createWindow: app.whenReady() is stubbed as a promise that never settles and main.js has no exports.

I had fixed the first two, then reverted them as out of scope, which is why there's a revert in the history. The code matches the first commit.

Screenshots

Nothing new appears on screen; the fix is a window that stops appearing. I have a screenshot of the bug on trunk if it's useful.

[mokagio]

@amitraj2203 thank you for this PR. You'll notice I just merged trunk into your branch. It's to sync with a few structural and security changes that landed on trunk since you opened this. Cheers.

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[juanmaguitar]

Thanks for this, the approach is right and I'd like to get it in.

Trunk moved under the branch, so two imports no longer exist. The merge is clean but both end up undefined at runtime:

• isAllowedExternalUrl was removed from src/external-url.js ([Remove] test-only external URL predicate #436). normalizeExternalUrl(url) === null does the same check.
• describeRefusedUrl is now describeRefused in src/safe-log.js ([Remove] unused Git and logging exports #439, [Refactor] centralize safe log formatter tests, Fixes #429 #440), which main.js already imports.

With those two swapped and trunk merged in, lint and the unit suite pass for me.

Not blocking: pinToTrac in src/trac-view.js now has the same three-handler shape. Could share a helper some day.

And an apology: I pushed the two fixes to your branch before thinking better of it, then force-pushed it back to 409e956. It is exactly as you left it. Your fix, your call.