131678 - Page Up and Page Down keys should not change selection

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core :: XUL, defect)

Description

[Greg Dougherty]

When viewing a newsgroup, if I click in the scroll bar in the area between the
thumb and the down arrow, the list scrolls a pages worth of items, and the
selected item remains the same.

If I hit the "Page Down" Key, the list scrolls the same, but the selected item
is changed.  Hitting the key should do the exact same thing as clicking in the
scroll area, so this behavior is clearly incorrect.  (IMHO, the cleanest way to
implement those keys is to call the same code for scrolling in both cases (mouse
click and key down).)

Comment 1

[ji]

to the owner and QA contact of selected component.

Comment 2

[Nathaniel]

I diagree that they should behave identically -- clicking a scrollbar is a
different request than hitting a page up/page down key. To understand why the
keyboard functionality desired is to move the selection, see <a
href="http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=76219">bug 76219</a>.
Conversely, sometimes grabbing the scoll bar to go up or down is a useful way of
referring elsewhere on a page without moving your selection.

Comment 3

[Greg Dougherty]

Sorry, but that makes no sense.

1: The bug you are linking to is idiotic.  Of COURSE paging up or down is going 
to make a currently visible selection disappear.  That's the whole point of 
paging!

2: The current behavior doesn't address the bug.  The bug creator wasn't asking 
you to change the selection, he, was asking you to keep the selection visible 
(i.e. cut the page short so that the selected item became the first or last item 
on the screen).

3: Page Up is exactly the same thing as clicking in the scroll bar in between the 
thumb and the up arrow.  Having one change the selection, and the other not, is 
the sort of computer "magic" that makes people hate computers.  Would you expect 
the selection to change if you hit Page Up in a text editor (for example, in the 
window displaying the text you are now reading)?  In a spreadsheet?  Then why 
change it here?

4: What is the "correct" behavior if I scroll the window down so that the current 
selection is not in view, and then hit Page Down?  If you always leave the 
selection alone, this isn't an issue, in the current case, it is.  (Note: there 
is NO correct solution, your way.  If Page X always moves the selection the 
amount scrolled, but the "current selection" isn't visible, then the new "current 
selection" will still not be visible, which defeats the point of moving it in the 
first place.  If you make a currently visible item the new selection, which one?  
There are two "correct" choices, meaning that whichever one you select is wrong.)

5: This is a "killer bug" for me.  I would use Netscape to read newsgroups, but 
this bug makes the Page Up and Down keys useless (if I want the selection 
changed, I'll change it).  Since I use them all the time while reading News, the 
result is I don't use Netscape for News, which means I generally don't use 
Netscape for anything.

Greg

Comment 4

[Greg K.]

Do Apple's HIGs have anything to say about this?

Comment 5

[Simon Fraser [no longer active]]

Probably. In every Mac application I've seen, Page Up/Down do _not_ change the
selection.

Comment 6

[Kathleen :Brade]

I'm pretty sure there are other duplicate bugs of this issue; the widgets (in
general) are not very Mac-friendly and ignore platform-specific desirable
behaviors.  This is another case of that.

Comment 7

[Paul Wyskoczka]

nsbeta1+/adt3 per the nav triage team.

Comment 8

[Samir Gehani]

Nav triage team: nsbeta1+/adt2

Over to Jan.

Comment 9

[Samir Gehani]

Nav triage team: nsbeta1-

Comment 10

[Jan Varga [:janv]]

I don't think anyone is going to work on this given the plan to remove the XUL "tree" widget (bug 1446335).