Why are links to PDF files live in the editor?

It’s not WordPress that is downloading the PDF, it’s your web browser. I’d suggest checking your mouse sensitivity and configuration.

Mouse sensitivity? How so? Ordinary links in the editor don’t behave this way, only links to PDFs. The only controls the mouse has are double click speed, and mouse speed (on a Mac).

WordPress doesn’t download files based on links. That’s handled by your web browser. so I can only guess that it’s either a browser setting or there’s an obscure setting on your mouse that downloads highlighted links.

If so, why does not do it when I highlight or click in a link to any other kind of file?

As to the mouse settings, I use the basic Apple mouse controls which are very minimal and there’s no way it could be the source of the problem.

Firefox maybe, but Safari as well? Look it’s no big deal, it’s just irritating like lots of other niggling things about the editor. I’ve been using a Mac since ’84 and I really think that WordPress deserves a much better and more reliable interface.

After all, for most users of WP it’s the major way they interact with the site on a regular basis.

If the Tinymce editor was a standalone app, how do you think it would fair up against the competition?

One million users demand the best, that’s why we use WP in the first place, but that doesn’t mean that as a ‘work in progress’ it can’t be criticized concerning where the programmers/designers priorities lie when it comes to development.

B

Do you have the editor in html mode?

I’ve tried this in Firefox, Firefox, Opera & Chrome on OS X (All latest current latest versions) using both html & visual editors. My results were that a link to a pdf is treated exactly like any other link within the visual editor – ie it does not open or prompt to download.

Based on my tests I’d say I’m sure that this isn’t a problem with WordPress.

You could try to isolate the problem by trying other browsers, other computers etc to track down what it is on your system is causing your problem.

Fishdogfish: Unfortunately, I have to continually switch between both modes as the editor insists on inserting the spacer code after I do a save, so I have to clean out the extra code.

Cubecolour: Yes, in Safari as well. I have a G4 laptop that I can try it on as well. I’ll let you know.

Are you telling me the editor is inserting the spacer code in the post edit box? That’s odd.

Always. It’s a longstanding thing with the editor. You can turn it off (insert html entities) but I need it on because I need to export raw code and put it back into html documents for distribution.

BTW, the live pdf links does have something to do with Firefox on this machine but don’t ask me what it is.