410880 - Backspace key gets stuck in a textbox instead of continuing to go back pages in history

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: Keyboard Navigation, defect)

Description

[Cor'e]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/20071127 Firefox/2.0.0.11
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/20071127 Firefox/2.0.0.11

When i press the BACKSPACE key i expect it to go BACK, sometimes instead of this it will jump to the Address bar or text input box and start to delete text, this behavior really is problematic!!  I expect to use BACKSPACE and SHIFT-BACKSPACE for going BACK & FORWARD respectively, i don't want or expect it to get focused and stuck in text boxes or the Address Bar ever, unless i click into those boxes on purpose.  This behavior is very annoying, very very annoying and makes me want a new browser period.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.use BACKSPACE to go BACK
2.At some point focus may enter a text box and get stuck
3.It happens very frequently, after a few BACKSPACES
Actual Results:  
The cursor focus will get "stuck" in a text box or the Address Bar and i can no longer go BACK until i find and click on some non-active space on the web site i'm stuck on to reset pointer focus out of the text box or Address Bar - very annoying, if i click wrong on an active space i lose my BACK/FORWARD history.

Expected Results:  
I expect the cursor to never ever get stuck in a text box.  I expect BACKSPACE to smoothly always go BACK in the Tab or Window's history.

Perhaps this is where history has left my cursor prior to moving off to a new link, but this may not be so because the cursor should have been left on the link i clicked on to move forward while browsing.

Comment 1

[Jesse Ruderman]

If you do a search from http://www.google.com/ by pressing Enter, it makes sense for focus to be in the search field when you return to that page.  I don't know why it would end up in the address bar or in other form fields, though.

Do you have a set of steps that reliably reproduce this bug?

Comment 2

[Cor'e]

If you keep hitting BACKSPACE in a Tab and it will get snafu'd at some point, it happens rather reliably here (FF Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/20071127  & WinXP SP2).  But, i will try to narrow it down to some particular set of web pages if possible.

Comment 3

[Cor'e]

Okay, after typing comment #2, i click commit, then i hit BACKSPACE for ~8 pages and focus gets stuck in the Bugzilla Login Box where i typed my email address to login here and view and commit, any further attempt to BACKSPACE or SHIFT-BACKSPACE fails.

Comment #1 makes no sense to me at all regarding "Google searches", because if i type in the Search Bar it will for me create a new Tab without any history, and what's more even if i do click a few links to create a history, going BACK to the first page does not seem to put my focus in the Search Bar at all.

(Perhaps thinking things should be automatic decided for us like this(Re google comment #1) may be the reason we have this issue programmed into FF today.)

Comment 4

[Cor'e]

i tried it like you have said in Comment #1, yes it is good to have it work that way for things like googole searches from their main web page perhaps, but it is definitely not good when it also happens the way i'm pointing out in this bug report, some thinking needs to be done on this for sure.

Comment 5

[Cor'e]

I can understand going back a page or so to modify a search, but when it is long since forgotten history or when i want to get to web pages prior to the "search" it becomes an annoyance beyond reason i think.

Comment 6

[Jesse Ruderman]

Do you have a set of steps to reliably reproduces something that is clearly a bug, such as focus ending up in the browser's search bar or address bar when you press Backspace?

Comment 7

[Cor'e]

Yes, for example see Comment #2.  

Otherwise:  Open a tab, browse randomly for awhile, hit BACKSPACE multiple times and you will see the cursor focus get stuck in a text box at some point as you go backwards through your Tab History.  If not then try again, it happens so frequently i'd think you'd notice it by now.

In fact, after typing this comment and clicking Commit below, i bet if i hit BACKSPACE i'll end up stuck in this Additional Comments text box...

Comment 8

[Cor'e]

Nope, i actually BACKSPACE'd back 3 or 4 times and instead got stuck in
Bugzilla's http://bugzilla.mozilla.org "Find a bug:" search text box...

Comment 9

[Jesse Ruderman]

The Bugzilla main page focuses the search box when it loads.  That's not a bug, but it might make sense to ignore web site attempts to focus things right after you press Backspace.  (See bug 226386 for another situation where you might want to ignore calls to focus().)

Are you seeing anything that's clearly a bug?

Comment 10

[David]

Umm... isn't the backspace key only used to remove characters to the left of the flashing prompt cursor?  Judging by this, it seems to be a normal function that it goes backward to previous pages instead just removing characters.  Which I thought was a bug because its a really stupid function.  How do I stop it from doing a backward page function because from a word processor point of view, having a backspace key do a function other than what its normally intended for is redicles.  

Like how do I delete stuff if I made a mistake?  I'd normally hit the backspace key a few times, or hold it down, but since upgrading to Firefox v3 it seems to have a new function.  And blocking text and hitting the DEL key seems to do nothing.  Ah **** if the intended function of the backspace key in FF3 is to go backward in your history, then, someone should write a nice lil file before anyone downloads FF...***warning keys you thought you knew the function for are no longer the way you think they are***

8(

Comment 11

[Jesse Ruderman]

David, the brokenness you're seeing is not this bug.  Please file a new one, or work with Firefox Support to figure out what's wrong on your system.

Comment 12

[JDev]

Has anyone been able to reproduce this with JavaScript disabled?  This would eliminate the possibility that the focus() method was not being used on a website to change the expected behaviour.

Comment 13

[David]

(In reply to comment #11)
> David, the brokenness you're seeing is not this bug.  Please file a new one, or
> work with Firefox Support to figure out what's wrong on your system.
> 

Am I to understand that, Cor'e is referring to the left arrow key, and calling it a backspace key?  Because what he is describing are the functions of the left arrow key but keeps referring to it as a backspace key.  I did a generic search and thought this string was for the actual backspace key located top right, above the return key on a standard 101 keyboard.  My bad... sorry... 

Comment 14

[JDev]

David,

The backspace key has been used to go back in history in many browsers for quite a while now.  

If the carat (the "flashing prompt cursor" as you call it) is in a text field of any type and the backspace key is pressed, it performs it's normal function.  If the focus is on the document or window, so no carat exists on the screen, backspace can't be used to delete text.  In this case, and only in this case the backspace key can be used for navigation (backspace to go back, shift+backspace to go forward).  What you're experiencing is not a bug.

The DEL key not working properly could be a bug.  To verify this, go to Start->Programs->Accessories->Accessibility->On-Screen Keyboard.  Open a website where you can't "block" and delete text, type some text and block it.  Attempt to use the DEL key, if it fails, hit the DEL button on the on-screen keyboard.  If it does not delete, either there is a bug in FireFox or the page you are on has Javascript disabling this function.  Disable Javascript and try again.  If it continues, report a bug.

As to this bug, I have tested with Javascript disabled going though random sites using the backspace key, both pressing rapidly and holding down.  I'm unable to reproduce.  Maybe Cor'e can?

Cheers,

Mark

Comment 15

[David]

My bad, I'm still thinking like I'm in MSIE, where this doesn't happen at all.  Thank-you for the explaination Mark.

Comment 16

[Cor'e]

Well, i started using FF 3010 and this happens less frequently, which is good.  

Even if i use the BackSpace & Shift-BackSpace keys to to go back & forward in the Tab History i get mixed results, whereas in FF 2xxx it was a very repeatable event (as described above).  

Now sometimes the cursor will get stuck in a Form Text Box (usually a login box like here on Bugzilla) and sometimes it will not, and i have not determined what makes it either miss the box or get into the box ans stop navigation.  

For those who may have been confused, i'm not talking about the Arrow keys or the Delete key, i'm really talking about the BACKSPACE key that i use for web page navigation (Backwards & Forwards).  Thx

Comment 17

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to comment #16)
> Well, i started using FF 3010 and this happens less frequently, which is good.  

Cor'e, how is it with FF 3.6?
Does it happenw ith firefox started in safe mode?

Comment 18

[Cor'e]

It seems that this functionality is not clearly set by all FF programmers, i would expect that if i use backspace to go back in page history it will do just that, and if i use backspace for deleting during editing it would also just do that.

If the backspace key is used in an editable field or text box it should work as expected and delete to the left (English text layout) and not make a Tab(not the key) go back in history at that moment.  But, if the focus is not a editable field like the webpage itself then it should function to go back in history for that Tab.  

The error this bug report is pointing at is that the focus is moving while going back in Tab history into an editable field or text box automatically and therefor the "history" function is changing into the "editing" function automatically.  This is the bug, it should not do that, focus should not move automatically into a text box or editable field unless that is where the focus was in history.  Focus should not move into the address bar field (which is editable) while going back in history, and if it would not do these things then Backspace would behave as expected in FF.

Comment 19

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

please reproduce with firefox in:
- safe mode  https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Safe+Mode
- with js disabled   tools > options > content
with numbered steps and cite please specific URL being used.


personal reference http://www.mydigitallife.info/2008/06/22/disable-or-enable-backspace-as-go-back-page-browsing-function-in-firefox/