Bugzilla

(In reply to Marco Bonardo [:mak] from comment #38)
> The default file manager on Ubuntu doesn't have a urlbar by default (it can be enabled with hidden gsettings pref) and it doesn't select by default, though I couldn't really find many apps that by default show a urlbar-like widget. Normal input fields don't matter here, because the urlbar is a specific kind of widget with its own behavior, not just an input field.
> Could you please make some examples of urlbar-like widgets in commonly used Linux apps?

What I have been wondering the entire time: how is the location bar not just an input field? It has text that I can edit. I can submit that text. I get completions (which depending on the kind of form also isn't any weird behaviour at all). Location bars are inputs with a very specific goal, so they just don't appear in a lot of other apps, making your "challenge" harder. But that doesn't make them not an input field, and it makes the inconsistency even weirder, because there just aren't a lot of other location bars to "learn" that locationbar-specific behaviour. One that I did find that hasn't been mentioned yet, is FileZilla. It just puts the cursor wherever you click, as expected.

As an extra, this "select on single click" behaviour is also added to the search bar, probably for consistency reasons (which already refutes your previous argument that the location bar is special somehow). Here's a non-exhaustive list of apps with a search-like widget that doesn't automatically select everything with a single click:

- Thunderbird
- Firefox's find in page
- Literally every KDE app I could find: Discover, System settings, Kate find bar, Qt Creator, Okular, Ark...
- Some GNOME apps apparently just hide the search bar/find if you unfocus it, but the ones I could find that don't, all just placed the cursor wherever I clicked: Files, System settings, Documents, Fonts, Maps (can't get a more literal _location_ bar if you ask me!)
- Even some Electron apps, which generally don't conform to any platform standards don't select the entire search bar when I click it (note: I don't know how they behave on other platforms): Postman, Signal, Riot

Apps with a location/search-like bar I encountered that do select everything on a single click:
- Firefox/Chromium/Vivaldi
- LibreOffice Find in page

In all my search, these are the only apps I encountered that have this weird "select everything" behaviour in any location or search widget I could possibly find.

If you agree that the new behaviour is platform inconsistent for search widgets (which this quick run-down of apps on my system definitely seems to support), then the options for the search bar are:

- Leave it as it is, making it inconsistent with the platform
- Make it platform consistent, and thus inconsistent with the location bar
- Also revert the location bar to the behaviour that is consistent with every other text field in Linux, except apparently the location/search bar in some Chromium-based browsers and LibreOffice's "Find in page".

(In reply to Marco Bonardo [:mak] from comment #38)
> The default file manager on Ubuntu doesn't have a urlbar by default (it can be enabled with hidden gsettings pref) and it doesn't select by default, though I couldn't really find many apps that by default show a urlbar-like widget. Normal input fields don't matter here, because the urlbar is a specific kind of widget with its own behavior, not just an input field.

What I have been wondering the entire time: how is the location bar not just an input field? It has text that I can edit. I can submit that text. I get completions (which depending on the kind of form also isn't any weird behaviour at all). Location bars are inputs with a very specific goal, so they just don't appear in a lot of other apps, making your "challenge" harder. But that doesn't make them not an input field, and it makes the inconsistency even weirder, because there just aren't a lot of other location bars to "learn" that location bar-specific behaviour.


> Could you please make some examples of urlbar-like widgets in commonly used Linux apps?

One that I did find that hasn't been mentioned yet, is FileZilla, and of course the actual platform native browsers: Epiphany and Konqueror. They just put the cursor wherever you click, as expected. But as I said, I don't actually think the location bar is special at all.

As an extra, this "select on single click" behaviour is also added to the search bar, probably for consistency reasons (which already refutes your previous argument that the location bar is special somehow). Here's a non-exhaustive list of apps with a search-like widget that doesn't automatically select everything with a single click:

- Thunderbird
- Firefox's find in page
- Literally every KDE app I could find: Discover, System settings, Kate find bar, Qt Creator, Okular, Ark...
- Some GNOME apps apparently just hide the search bar/find if you unfocus it, but the ones I could find that don't, all just placed the cursor wherever I clicked: Files, System settings, Documents, Fonts, Maps (can't get a more literal _location_ bar if you ask me!)
- Even some Electron apps, which generally don't conform to any platform standards don't select the entire search bar when I click it (note: I don't know how they behave on other platforms): Postman, Signal, Riot

Apps with a location/search-like bar I encountered that do select everything on a single click:
- Firefox/Chromium/Vivaldi
- LibreOffice Find in page

In all my search, these are the only apps I encountered that have this weird "select everything" behaviour in any location or search widget I could possibly find.

If you agree that the new behaviour is platform inconsistent for search widgets (which this quick run-down of apps on my system definitely seems to support), then the options for the search bar are:

- Leave it as it is, making it inconsistent with the platform
- Make it platform consistent, and thus inconsistent with the location bar
- Also revert the location bar to the behaviour that is consistent with every other text field in Linux, except apparently the location/search bar in some Chromium-based browsers and LibreOffice's "Find in page".