167396 - Can't select text w/ mouse, and can't unselect after "Select All": RFE: pref to prevent JS blocking text selection

Status: NEW

(Core :: DOM: Selection, enhancement)

Description

[bugs]

Steps to reproduce:

1. Load the URL
2. Try to select main body text w/ mouse - won't work
3. Use Edit->Select All to select all text
4. Try to unselect main body text w/ mouse - also won't work


Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.1) Gecko/20020826

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

The site does this on purpose.

		function disableselect(e){
		return false
		}
		
		function reEnable(){
		return true
		}
		
		document.onselectstart=new Function ("return false")
		
		if (window.sidebar){
		document.onmousedown=disableselect
		document.onclick=reEnable
		}

Comment 2

[bugs]

OK, then how can I unselect the text?
(Excepting disabling javascript, or reloading the page)

To put it another way:
Is the page broken, or mozilla has a bug, or is this behavior the perfect one?

Comment 3

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Mozilla is doing what the page asked it to do.  The page is doing something _I_
think is stupid, but I'm sure they have their reasons for it (or something). 
They're very definitely doing it on purpose, though....

Comment 4

[bugs]

And I almost forget:
Is it also correct to have right click disabled on the page?
(I'm going to file another bug for this, it's a serious problem about browser
control)

Comment 5

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Yes.  The page does that on purpose too:

	document.oncontextmenu=new Function("return false")

That bug is already filed; just search for "oncontextmenu"

Comment 6

[Jonas Jørgensen]

Reopening to request a pref (with UI in Scripts & Windows) to ignore web pages'
attempts to prevent the user from selecting text, or, rather, that the behavior
is simply changed without adding yet another pref.

Comment 7

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

There are legitimate uses for this functionality... eg if you want the user to
be able to drag-drop chunks of text on the page without having little "selection
trails" behind the mouse all the time...

Comment 8

[Jonas Jørgensen]

Just as legitimate uses can be thought of for most of the functionalities we
have prefs for in Scripts & Windows, but that doesn't make the abuse any less
annoying.

Comment 9

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Just realized you asked for a pref, not a default behavior.  Sure, a pref I can
see.  ;)

Comment 10

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Nasty stuff.

Comment 11

[Lorenzo Colitti]

Workaround: use the Jesse's JavaScript Shell bookmarklet:
http://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/webdevel.html

and enter the following commands:

document.onmousedown=new function(){return true;};
document.oncontextmenu=new function(){return true;};

I think web pages should never be allowed to do this...

Comment 12

[TGOS]

Isn't this a dupe of bug 86193? I mean 86193 is about context menu and this one
is about text selection, but I'm for making 86193 a general bug to not allow
pages to prevent either mouse button to not work as desired. I don't understand
why left and right mouse button both need an own bug. 

Comment 13

[Hanspeter Niederstrasser]

Attachment: testcase from comment #1

URL no longer works.  Attached testcase blocks selecting the text and also
blocks the context menu as a control.  The context menu can be re-enabled by
setting dom.event.contextmenu.enabled to false.  No such pref currently exists
for onselectstart or onmousedown.

Comment 14

[R.K.Aa.]

*** Bug 174795 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 15

[R.K.Aa.]

a page where the original bug here can be seen is
http://www.sas-gmbh.com/impressum.php from bug 250067

Comment 18

[Lőrinczy Zsigmond]

I think I have experienced this problem, too; and the solutions was adding this part into file */chrome/userContent.css:

*       { -moz-user-select: text !important;
          user-select:      text !important; }