22606 - Table-constrained text refuses to be highlighted

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Core :: DOM: Selection, defect, P3)

Description

[Crysgem]

The words within the table below the illustrations of Terra thwart the
worker-algorithm of Selection, such that they cannot be highlighted. Is the text
to blame in defeating the 1999122308 build, or the algorithms?

Comment 1

[Sean Richardson]

Attachment: Cited page for future reference, with BASE href set

Comment 2

[Sean Richardson]

Click-dragging down slowly in the paragraph below the double illustration
of the globe at the upper left of the story (the caption text) results in
highlighting of the text in the main story to the left, paralleling the mouse
pointer movement. Attempting to copy and paste this text accomplishes nothing.
The caption text is in a single-cell table inside the table containing the
story, itself inside another table. Could this be just a matter of too much
table nesting for the selection algorithm to handle?

If the drag-selection continues below the end of the paragraph ending with
"... San Francisco" in the story text, *all* of the text below that point in
the caption text is instantly selected, but once the drag continues to the point
that the pointer is beside the next paragraph, this highlighted portion
of the caption is un-highlighted again, and selection of the main story text
continues.

A similar pattern is seen if drag-selection is done in the caption upward from
the bottom. This is with M12 or a 1999-12-27 build; with a 1999-12-25 build,
the appearance will be very different, but the phenomenon is the same - that
build lays out the main article text differently so that the first line of
the caption is beside a paragraph break (Arial is used for the main story
by 1999-12-25 (like NN 4.7) but not by M12).

Tested with:
M12 release (1999-12-20-23) on Windows NT 4.0sp3
NN 4.7 on Windows NT 4.0sp3
1999-12-25-08-M13 nightly binary on Windows NT 4.0sp3
1999-12-27-08-M13 nightly binary on Windows NT 4.0sp3

NN 4.7 can't select the caption text either, but at least no other text
gets selected (or appears to get selected) in the attempt (this is really
annoying).

Comment 3

[Eli Goldberg]

Note possibly related bug #22751.

Comment 4

[mjudge]

this is the craziest thing i have seen. you should see what 4.x does with this
example.  the one thing i can note is that the mouse cursor when hovering over
the captioned text turns from a "text" icon to a regular arrow on the second
line.  this is also when things get screwy when drag selecting.  I am not sure
who should be responsible for this really. I will confir with nisheeth

Comment 5

[mjudge]

yeah this is the align issue again. I will let pixley have the joy of either
making all these dupes or fixing all of them at once.

Comment 6

[joki (gone)]

Looks pretty good with my new fixes.

Comment 7

[Eli Goldberg]

Verified fixed using 2.15.00 Win32/Mac OS builds & 2.14.00 Linux build.

---

Sean, as usual, if you'd like to give this a whirl, please do. You've probably 
look at this much more thoroughly than I have. ;)

Comment 8

[Sean Richardson]

This is working exactly as expected. Selection works normally inside the 
caption, and selection that extends into or out of the caption acts as if the
caption preceeds the story, which it does in the HTML.