1242764 - Change deleting search suggestion history in the search bar from del to shift-del on all platforms (delete causes issues if a search suggestion is selected)

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Search, defect, P3)

Description

[arni2033]

Attachment: screenshot 1 - It's not possible to delete text with (Ctrl+)Del.png

>>>   My Info:   Win7_64, Nightly 46, 32bit, ID 20160121030208
STR:
0. Make sure that you're using Google search engine in Search bar
1. Type "hello world" in Search bar   [popup menu with search suggestions will appear]
2. Make sure that there's at least 2 search suggestions in popup menu
3. Press Down key   [the 1st search suggestion will be selected]
4. Press Home key
5. Press Delete key
6. Press Ctrl+Del

Result:       
 After Step 5 Searchbar says "hello world". The 1st suggestion was deleted. 
 After Step 6 Searchbar says "hello world". The 2nd suggestion was deleted. 

Expectations: 
 After Step 5 Searchbar should display text "ello world"
 After Step 6 Searchbar should display text "world"

This issue was implemented in bug 1114707. Regression range:
> https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/pushloghtml?fromchange=ae5d04409cd9&tochange=0c2f7434c325

Note:
 This may also be an item from Search History, not the suggestions.
 In this case my precious history item will be deleted. Actually, that happened several times.

Comment 1

[:shell escalante]

shift+delete should remove but ctrl-delete should not

Comment 2

[arni2033]

Comment 1 is not complete explanation:
1) What about simply Delete?
2) I haven't mention Shift+Delete, but it's default action is "delete 1 symbol after the caret"
   This behavior is presented in <textarea>, <input>, Location bar and even in Search bar.
   I often press Shift+Delete as well, expecting it to delete 1 symbol. So if Shift+Del will
   be deleting my precious history items (I saved them on purpose, right?), this is still a bug.

Comment 3

[arni2033]

(In reply to :shell escalante from comment #1)
> shift+delete should remove but ctrl-delete should not
Have you really read the STR in comment 0?
Does it make difference to you if in Step 5 you do nothing? Because, if these 2 scenarios look the same to you, then we need to clarify something... They are not the same; expectations are different. Also, I don't feel like this respond about Shift+Del really refers to comment 0. Therefore setting NI

Comment 4

[Florian Quèze [:florian]]

(In reply to arni2033 from comment #3)
> (In reply to :shell escalante from comment #1)
> > shift+delete should remove but ctrl-delete should not
> Have you really read the STR in comment 0?

Shell's comment here is a short summary what we/I said during a triage meeting. I had indeed missed step 5 in the STRs.

It seems the Del key removing the selected suggestion is consistent with the behavior in the awesomebar.

Not closing the search panel when the user interacts with the searchbar was an intentional UX change.

I guess one possible fix would be to clear the suggestion selection when the caret is moved using the keyboard (Home key in your STRs, but also left/right arrow keys). Note that moving the caret with a click already clears the suggestion selection.

Comment 5

[arni2033]

(In reply to Florian Quèze [:florian] [:flo] from comment #4)
> Shell's comment here is a short summary what we/I said during a triage meeting.
> I had indeed missed step 5 in the STRs.
I'm sorry, my comment 3 was a bit incorrect. The key point in STR is Step 4, not step 5. Looks like
you understood it anyway, but also wrote "Step 5". So just in case, here's the full description from
my side. Now I can be sure that whatever decision you'll take, it's based directly on what I meant

Improved STR:
 0. Make sure that you're using Google search engine in Search bar
 1. Type "hello world" in Search bar   [popup menu with search suggestions will appear]
 2. Make sure that there're at least 2 search suggestions in popup menu
 3. Press Down key   [the 1st search suggestion will be selected]
 4.A) Do nothing
 4.B) Press Home key
 4.C) Press Left key several times, then press Ctrl+Left twice
 5. Press Delete key
 6. Press Shift+Del
 7. Press Ctrl+Del

AR:
 After Step 5 Searchbar says "hello world". The 1st suggestion was deleted.
 After Step 6 Searchbar says "hello world". The 2nd suggestion was deleted.
 After Step 7 Searchbar says "hello world". The 3rd suggestion was deleted.
ER:
 (A):  AR is expected

 (B), (C):  After Step 5 Searchbar should display text "ello world"
            After Step 6 Searchbar should display text "llo world"
            After Step 7 Searchbar should display text "world"

Explanation:
In scenarios (B) and (C) user (me) moves caret within the search bar. It's clear that user started working with text inside <input>, so all attention is paid to <input>, not to suggestions.
So pressing Delete key should apply to the <input>.

Comment 6

[Justin Dolske [:Dolske]]

Panos: do you want to increase the priority of this given comment 4?

Comment 7

[Panos Astithas (he/him) [:past] (please ni?)]

Thanks for the ping, I think the removal of the suggestion with a plain Delete is particularly annoying. Shift-Delete should keep matching the behavior of the awesomebar, but Ctrl-Delete or plain Delete should keep editing the input field text. Marking it as P3 as there is a number of other similar bugs with this priority, but I could be convinced to make it a P2 if others feel strongly about it.

Comment 8

[Milan Sreckovic [:milan] (needinfo for best results)]

fix-optional unless it changes to a P2.

Comment 9

[Dinar]

this bug is still existent/actual/present in ff 65.0.

Comment 10

[Dinar]

i have google suggestions disabled, i am not sure about it, but this is still existent with search history suggestions in ff 65.0 64bit.

Comment 11

[Neha Kochar [:neha]]

Bulk change for all regression bugs with status-firefox67 as 'fix-optional' to be marked 'affected' for status-firefox68.

Comment 12

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

I've just discussed this with :mverdi and we've agreed that changing to shift-delete on all platforms (mac already uses it) is the right thing to do here. It makes it consistent with the recent address bar switch, and avoids these type of issues (this bug and bug 1293046).

Comment 13

[Mathew Hodson]

The shortcut was changed to shift+del in bug 1525547. So I think we can close this as fixed and make it depend on that bug.

Comment 14

[Mathew Hodson]

Sorry the shortcut was changed for the address bar not the search bar.