250341 - [aviary branch] Find bar: starting to type no longer activates find-as-you-type

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Toolkit :: Find Toolbar, defect)

Description

[Volkmar W. Pogatzki]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040706 Firefox/0.9.0+
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040707 Firefox/0.9.0+

Typeahead FInd no longer works in latest Aviary

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.

Comment 1

[(not currently active) Ted Mielczarek]

blake checked in some new find functionality.  It may be broken on linux, I
haven't checked.

http://www.squarefree.com/burningedge/archives/000494.html

If this bug is just about TAF not working automatically on links, it's probably
going to be WONTFIX.  If there's an actual bug with this new feature, then it's ok.

Comment 2

[Patrick]

dupe of bug 250198. Not sure if aviary bug should be dupe like this?

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 250198 ***

Comment 3

[Jesse Ruderman]

Not a dup of bug 250198.  On the aviary branch, Blake intentionally disabled
automatic find-as-you-type because too many people were triggering it
accidentally.  You now have to press Ctrl+F or / to start find, or ' to start
links-only find.

Comment 4

[:deanis74]

Although I love the new find toolbar, especially the highlight functionality, I
do miss the ability to just start typing to find anything.  Before we used to
automatically start a find-as-you-type search with any "normal" keypress.  Can
we bring that functionality back but have the find toolbar automatically display
and fill in with that character?

This bug should be moved to a different component.  The Search component is for
the internet search functionality.  I suggest Toolbars.

Comment 5

[Ali Ebrahim]

(In reply to comment #3)
> Not a dup of bug 250198.  On the aviary branch, Blake intentionally disabled
> automatic find-as-you-type because too many people were triggering it
> accidentally.  You now have to press Ctrl+F or / to start find, or ' to start
> links-only find.

We need a preference to change the behaviour back to what it was before. This
new behaviour is annoying as hell.

Comment 6

[Hiro]

*** Bug 250487 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 7

[Thomas Stache]

Maybe the slash is easy to hit on a US keyboard, but on a German it's Shift+7.
So there are TWO MORE keypresses needed now. Please reconsider.

Comment 8

[:deanis74]

> We need a preference to change the behaviour back to what it was before. This
> new behaviour is annoying as hell.

I'm guessing that a cohesive argument, perhaps with pros and cons, would be
better than this stance.  Maybe you could offer alternatives, like I did in
comment 4.  Or maybe you could just complain like so many other people do.

Comment 9

[Volkmar W. Pogatzki]

> We need a preference to change the behaviour back to what it was before. This
> new behaviour is annoying as hell.

There still is a preference "Use Find As You Type". 
Couldn't this be used for toggling between classical "TypeAheadFind" and the new
"TypeSlashFind"?

Comment 10

[Hiro]

(In reply to comment #7)
> Maybe the slash is easy to hit on a US keyboard, but on a German it's Shift+7.
> So there are TWO MORE keypresses needed now. Please reconsider.

When using IME by CJK etc., a step increases as follows and a sake is not good.
 1. IME off
 2.  type "/"
 3. IME on
 4. Input Search Text(About me, Japanese is inputted.)

And like NotePC the indicatory territory with the environment which has
restriction, does not want the tool bar appearing in above now from
the desktop PC.

Comment 11

[Lorenzo Colitti]

What about this proposal?

1. Rename the UI pref "Use find as you type"  to "automatically open the search
bar if I start typing". Default is set to OFF.
2. If the pref is off, behaviour is the same as current branch builds. If the
pref is on, typing opens the search bar and shifts focus to it
3a. If enter is used to navigate a link, the search bar is closed (to fix bug
250466)
OR
3b. If enter is used to navigate a link, the search bar is cleared (or the text
in it is selected so that when the user types the previous find is overwritten).

This keeps happy all those people (including me :)) who liked the advantages of
old type-ahead find, but still retains the advantages of the search bar for them
and for normal users.

Comments?

Comment 12

[Volkmar W. Pogatzki]

Other Proposal

Why shouldn't we simply have both, Typeahead Find (the old way) _without_
searchbar AND typing ' or / for opening searchbar?

Comment 13

[junk]

God, why ruin what's perfect? The prior fayt setup (with the option for links
only unchecked, as it should be by default) is absolutely brilliant in ease of
use and the major benefit of ff beside tabs, imo. How much easier can it be to
explain to a newbie than "start typing"? Now it is complicated for them: "I have
to hit what again, for what? A quote? which one? For what again?" And then an
annoying toolbar pops up? Please reconsider!

The ctr-f is only annoying in that it won't start with your selected text. (Why
not?) But the highlighting is nice and could be included in it. If a toolbar is
insisted upon - bad idea imo - then let it ONLY replace the ctr-f function.

Comment 14

[Simon Palko]

Personally, I wouldn't even mind this new preference being left out of the
options dialog, and leaving it accessable through about:config.  I tend to put
most options that I change there in user.js, and I imagine most of the people
who still want FAYT to remain as it did are pretty comfortable with futzing
around in about:config or user.js.

To be clear, I *want* FAYT functionality to at least be configureable to behave
as it does in 0.9 and befor, I'm just taking the UI bloat concern into
consideration.

Comment 15

[Unknown W. Brackets]

I notice that a few things have changed with this functionality, but it still
simply isn't what it used to be.

First off, turn on the accessibility.typeaheadfind pref in about:config.

Go to the start page (http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/), press ctrl-f
and click back in the window, and type "pre".  Wait, it only has "re" in the
box!  The "p" never got to the box, it just selected it.  This only happens if
you open the find thing first, then type "pre".

Anyway, in Firefox 0.9.1 and similar, typing "pre" only selects "Press release"
and gives it focus (the dotted box...) - in the BEAST build I just downloaded,
it selects the word preview.  If it's a backwards compatible pref, it'd be nice
if it worked as it used to. (selecting links only.. not just when you start it
with '.)

Even if you finish typing press, it doesn't focus the link.... no dotted box.  I
found this dotted box extremely useful when using the typeahead feature, which I
used VERY often to navigate to links I was reading.

Now, back to the start page, type ' and then "award "....  AHH!!  What just
happened?!?  The page scrolled down because you pressed space.  Luckily, this
doesn't happen if you press ctrl-f first... but that scrolling can't be intentional.

Personally, I would love to see it back in the status bar - it was the current
status, wasn't it?  And the link href/location simply made it perfect.  When I
first read about it, I thought it was a novel but quirky feature... but then I
used it.  If it hadn't been for all the good points (now missing!) I named here,
I would only have continued to think of it as quirky.

But, I know I'm just asking for the old stuff back, and this may plain never
happen.  I wonder if I could write myself an extension to "bring it back",
though... bonsai will help with that one.

On a related note, the bar simply is not noticable enough.  If I didn't know it
was there, and I hit Ctrl-F... I would simply assume that Firefox was so ****,
it didn't even support finding text on the current page.  I'm not kidding about
that, and most other people would... something more than its appearance needs to
announce its coming.

Of course, these are all in my opinion.  I'm sure that of others will widely vary..

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.2; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040709
Firefox/0.9.0+ (BEAST - 7/10/2003 1:06:00 AM)

-[Unknown]

Comment 16

[Steffen Wilberg]

Blake fixed this with checkins between 2004-07-09 18:11 and 2004-07-09 18:41.
Find As You Type is disabled by default. To enable it, select the checkbox in
Tools->Options->Advanced->Accessibility.

When you start typing, the find toolbar automatically appears (which is now at
the bottom). Blake also removed the linksonly mode, which conflicts with the
normal find behaviour.

-> General...

Comment 17

[Steffen Wilberg]

... and marking fixed.

The prefs accessibility.typeaheadfind.linksonly and
accessibility.typeaheadfind.startlinksonly still exist (set to false in
firefox.js), but have no effect.

Comment 18

[Steffen Wilberg]

As for linksonly mode, Blake only removed the pref from Options->Adanced.
I didn't inspect the code in detail, but he replaced the gLinksMode variable in
browser.js by FIND_NORMAL, FIND_TYPEAHEAD and FIND_LINKS=2 constants and queries
them, so he didn't remove the functionality. It just doesn't work.

Comment 19

[Hiro]

(In reply to comment #16)
> Blake fixed this with checkins between 2004-07-09 18:11 and 2004-07-09 18:41.
> Find As You Type is disabled by default. To enable it, select the checkbox in
> Tools->Options->Advanced->Accessibility.
No!!!

FAYT works by the English.
But Japanese(IME is ON) does not work.

Comment 20

[Ben Basson]

Is there a seperate bug for Links only mode? It's an accessibility aid, we
really should be fixing it also, rather than simply hiding it, IMO.

Comment 21

[betheking]

Regarding #19: Correct, FAYT only works for ASCII chars. The problem is the
function isPrintable() in browser.js, it is too simple. I guess there should be
a separate bug about it...

Regarding #20: I fully agree, as I use "links only FAYT" a lot. The pref
accessibility.typeaheadfind.linksonly isn't just hidden, it is not used (I've
patched browser.js locally to fix that part ;).

Comment 22

[Hiro]

(In reply to comment #21)
> Regarding #19: Correct, FAYT only works for ASCII chars. The problem is the
> function isPrintable() in browser.js, it is too simple. I guess there should be
> a separate bug about it...

bug was separated.
bug250751.

Please correct this bug.

Comment 23

[Steffen Wilberg]

Just for reference: linksonly mode is still there. It is invoked by '
Bug 250924 is about making it more accessible.

Please file new bugs (in the new Find Toolbar component) for remaining problems.
-> v.