1805394 - Remove functions from Command and Option modifier keys in macOS, as in Chrome and Safari

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Keyboard Navigation, enhancement)

Description

[5silentrain]

Attachment: MOS

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.15; rv:107.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/107.0

Steps to reproduce:

In Chrome and Safari, the Command and Option modifier keys do not perform any functions, unlike Firefox. This is very convenient for users of the MOS utility, which is installed by almost all mac users. This utility allows you to achieve smooth and consistent scrolling in the system itself and in all applications for mice with a wheel.
Link to the official site: https://mos.caldis.me
Link to GitHub: https://github.com/Caldis/Mos

I've set the Command key in MOS to speed up scrolling, and I've set the Option key to temporarily disable MOS. Screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/XYiYsgG.png

And it works in all apps including Chrome and Safari! It also works in the system itself, of course. But in Firefox, this does not work, because these modifier keys are occupied by other functions, which is very inconvenient 😭

Please consider removing functionality from these modifier keys, as is done in Chrome and Safari 🙏

Comment 1

[5silentrain]

Okay, in the 109.0 beta changelog, the following change caught my eye: "On macOS, Ctrl or Cmd + trackpad or mouse wheel now scrolls the page instead of zooming. This avoids accidental zooming and matches Safari's and Chrome's behavior. If you would like to restore the previous zooming behavior, set the mousewheel.with_control.action and mousewheel.with_meta.action prefs to "3" in about:config".

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/109.0beta/releasenotes/

👍

All that remains is to remove the function from the Option key so that Firefox's behavior matches that of Safari and Chrome.

Comment 2

[5silentrain]

Since version 109, I can finally hold down the Command key and speed up scrolling with the MOS utility 👌 Firefox has finally caught up with Safari and Chrome in this regard 👏 🍾

If you want to disable the Option key as well, the following trick can be used as a workaround for now:

1. Open the about:config page
2. In the search field enters "mousewheel.with_alt.action"
3. Change the value from "2" to "1"

Profit!

But in a future update, I would like this parameter to have a value of "1" by default 🙏

Comment 3

[5silentrain]

Holding down the Option modifier key and scrolling the mouse wheel to move back and forth in the history of a tab is an extremely stupid idea, and here's why:

1. Not all users have mice with a noticeable wheel scrolling step, which can lead to switching 2-3 tabs back / forward.
2. Pressing the Option key five times will enable/disable the special macOS feature from Accessibility. You can check it yourself. It's annoying to see this notification appearing all the time after repeatedly pressing the Option key.
3. The Option key is located next to the Control key, which by default is responsible for zooming in / out of a part of the screen (similar to a screen magnifier from Windows). If I accidentally hold down the Option key instead of the Control key, this can lead to unwanted navigation forward / backward through the history of the tab.
4. In Firefox under macOS, these keyboard shortcuts are enough to navigate back / forward in the history of a tab: Command + [ / Command + ] & Command + ←/Command + →

That is why there is no point in occupying this key with an extra action.

Comment 4

[Hani Yacoub, Desktop QA]

I will set this enhancement as new so the engineering team could decide if they take in consideration changing this.

Comment 5

[5silentrain]

Thanks!