1623923 - Can't use the Tab key to cycle through options in modal dialogs

Status: RESOLVED INACTIVE

(Core :: Widget: Gtk, defect)

Description

[Pablo]

Affected Versions:
Nightly 76.0a1
Beta 75.0b3

Tested on
Windows 10 x64 (not affected)
Ubuntu 18.04 x64 (affected)
MacOS 10.13 (affected)

Steps to reproduce

• Launch Firefox
• Enter ""cache firefox"" in megabar
• Click ""choose what to clear""
• Press TAB key in ""clear recent history menu"

or

• Launch Firefox
• Enter ""update firefox"" in megabar
• Click ""refresh firefox""
• Press TAB key to select ""refresh firefox button"

Actual Result:
only one button has focus after pressing tab key, the other button does not focus

Expected result
button should be focused after hitting TAB

Comment 1

[Harry Twyford]

If I'm reading this bug correctly, the Tab key can still be used to navigate to an Intervention, but it doesn't work in the modal dialogs that they open. In that case, this bug is not really about Urlbar Interventions but more about accessibility in our modal dialogs, specifically the Clear Recent History and Refresh Firefox dialogs. Sorry to our triagers to kick this over to Firefox::General, but I'm not sure which component tracks these modals.

Marco, I'm needinfo'ing you to see if this is a known issue that is maybe being tracked in another bug? A search didn't turn anything up, but I thought I'd check.

Comment 2

[Harry Twyford]

I just tested this on Windows and Linux and tab appears to work fine in these dialogs. It doesn't appear to work on macOS though, regardless of whether they were opened through an intervention or through the menu bar. Keeping the ni for Marco: is this a known issue? Can you reproduce?

Comment 3

[Marco Zehe (:MarcoZ)]

This is the peculiar behavior of MacOS prior to Catalina where the tab key by default only focuses editable controls. There is a setting in System Preferences/Keyboard which controls this. Catalina did away with it. Firefox tries to be a good citizen and honors this system setting. Other browsers don't.

Comment 4

[:Gijs (he/him)]

Per https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1587962#c0 this preference still exists in catalina. Blake tried this and toggling it allows for the expected results. So it sounds like this is working as expected.

Reporter, are you able to reproduce this issue on Ubuntu (as comment #0 suggests)? That'd be a bit surprising - can you clarify what desktop environment you're using and/or if there are any similar settings on it?

Comment 5

[Pablo]

Attachment: tab key

Comment 6

[Pablo]

Attachment: 2.png

Comment 7

[Pablo]

Attachment: 3.png

Comment 8

[Pablo]

Hi Gijs

I am able to reproduce this on Ubundu 18.04 64bit, the cancel button gets focused but when you hit tab the clear now button does not get focus.
As for settings inside Ubuntu, im not really sure if ubuntu has one like MacOs, i tried searching but i can´t find it.

Comment 9

[:Gijs (he/him)]

I can't reproduce on Ubuntu, unfortunately.

Do you see the same thing if you open these two dialogs in other ways? The first one can be opened via the "History" menu (press alt-s in an English version), then "Clear recent history", the second by going to about:support, then clicking "Refresh Firefox..."

Comment 10

[Pablo]

Hi Gijs

-With Alt-S i get the clear recent history menu, and i can see that only "cancel" button has focus, "clear now" button never has focus when i hit tab key

• With about:support >Refresh firefox, this one is different, the "Refresh firefox" button has focus, but the "cancel" buton does not have focus, if you hit tab key it never gains focus.

this was tested on ubuntu 18.04 64bit

regards

Comment 11

[:Gijs (he/him)]

OK, without being able to reproduce, it's not clear why you'd be seeing this behaviour. It sounds like this doesn't have to do with the URL bar or frontend code in general, but is likely some kind of issue with gtk or the gtk bindings in Firefox.

Have you tried a clean Firefox profile? And can you think of anything you've changed in this ubuntu install, in terms of configuration, since it was created? Is it in a VM, and could it be the host OS is stealing the tab keystrokes under some circumstances? Or is it a physical Ubuntu machine?

Comment 12

[Pablo]

HI Gijs
All was done using a clean profile. I cant think of anything that was changed on the ubuntu install, tech support just installed ubuntu on our physical machines in another partition and they just set a username and password.

I just tested it on ubuntu with latest nightly version, but this time on Ubuntu version 16.04 LTS and repeated the Alt-S and about config and i see the same issue as with Ubuntu 18.

Comment 13

[Firefox Bug Husbandry Bot]

Because this bug's Severity has not been changed from the default since it was filed, and it's Priority is -- (Backlog,) indicating it has has not been previously triaged, the bug's Severity is being updated to -- (default, untriaged.)

Comment 14

[Firefox Bug Husbandry Bot]

Because this bug's Severity has not been changed from the default since it was filed, and it's Priority is -- (Backlog,) indicating it has has not been previously triaged, the bug's Severity is being updated to -- (default, untriaged.)

Comment 15

[Firefox Bug Husbandry Bot]

Because this bug's Severity has not been changed from the default since it was filed, and it's Priority is -- (Backlog,) indicating it has has not been previously triaged, the bug's Severity is being updated to -- (default, untriaged.)

Comment 16

[Firefox Bug Husbandry Bot]

The severity of these bugs was changed, mistakenly, from normal to S3.

Because these bugs have a priority of --, indicating that they have not been previously triaged, these bugs should be changed to Severity of --.

Comment 17

[Sylvestre Ledru [:Sylvestre]]

Closing as no activity or progress on this for years.