233977 - Single-click selects entire address bar rather than activates cursor

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: Toolbars and Customization, defect)

Description

[Seth Dolman]

User-Agent:       
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.7a) Gecko/20040125 Camino/0.7+

In Cocoa browsers like Camino and Safari, clicking in the address bar places the
cursor at that point, so the address can be edited.  Cmd-L is for selecting the
entire field so that one can go to a new location without having to reach for
the mouse (going to a new location from the address bar requires keyboard input
anyway).

In Firefox, clicking on the address bar selects the whole address bar so getting
to the cursor for editing, say adding a period, requires two single-clicks.  A
double-click, by the way, selects a single word.  Selecting the entire address
bar should not be the default action for single-clicking the address bar, since
keyboard input is always desired next and selecting the address bar can be
achieved from the keyboard with Cmd-L.  Editing the address, on the other hand,
is served well by mouse input so the cursor can (or should) be placed at a
particular, desired point as simply as possible.


Also, Cocoa text fields allow for emacs bindings (built-in for Cocoa
applications in Mac OS X).  Ctrl-K to "kill" the rest of the line is extremely
handy for navigating to an upper-level of the website from the address bar.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Click the address (location) bar.
2.
3.

Actual Results:  
All text in address is selected

Expected Results:  
Cursor should be active at point clicked

Comment 1

[Peter 'vt100' Schwindt]

marking enhancement... don't think that this is quite a bug

Comment 2

[timeless]

out of curiosity, what does about:buildconfig say?

Comment 3

[HARUNAGA Hirotoshi]

dup of Bug 229473?

Comment 4

[kaldari]

Not a dup of bug 229473.

This bug is aggrivating for Mac users, as we expect all text fields in all apps
to behave consitantly, yet the location bar in Firefox behaves in a totally
unexpected way. I can't count how many times I have clicked on the end of a URL
to add a subdirectory only to have the original URL disappear as soon as I start
typing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this behavior has already been
removed from the Linux version. If so, it should also be removed from the Mac
version.

Changing severity from enhancement to minor as this bug makes me want to switch
back to using Safari when I encounter it. Plus, it's probably a violation of
Apple's Human Interface Guidelines.

Comment 5

[kaldari]

The behavior of Camino's address bar is what Mac users would expect. Would it be
possible to graft Camino's address bar into Mac Firebird? If not, we should at
least stop it from selecting the entire URL on a single click.

Comment 6

[ender_mb]

(In reply to comment #5)
> The behavior of Camino's address bar is what Mac users would expect. Would it be
> possible to graft Camino's address bar into Mac Firebird? If not, we should at
> least stop it from selecting the entire URL on a single click.

That is most definitely not possible, since Camino is Cocoa and Firefox is XUL.
Howerver, I agree that the behavior should be changed to match the OS X standard.

Comment 7

[Ben Willmore]

Attachment: Makes emacs/Cocoa-style key bindings available on Mac OS

This is a patch against
Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/res/builtin/platformHTMLBindings.xml

When applied, it makes emacs/Cocoa bindings available in the address bar and
other input fields, without breaking any existing bindings that I'm aware of.

Comment 8

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

The Mozilla equivalent bug for this is bug 233977.  It's apparently a
preference, and I just verified this preference is present in Firefox.

The default needs to be changed to match the Aqua HIG though.

Bug 233977 was WONTFIXed however.  Someone said "HIG be damned" or something to
that effect.  I just reopened it.

Comment 9

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

(In reply to comment #7)
> Created an attachment (id=158886)
> Makes emacs/Cocoa-style key bindings available on Mac OS

This attachment belongs on bug 229473, not here.

Comment 10

[Brian Schack]

See also Bug 134649 (browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll should default to false on Macintosh).

Comment 11

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

*** Bug 264934 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 12

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

*** Bug 275242 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 13

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

*** Bug 264934 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 14

[kaldari]

All we have to do to fix this bug is add the following default preference:
pref("browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll", false);

Can someone write up a patch to do that?

Comment 15

[kaldari]

Below is the patch for Mozilla (bug 134649). Would the patch for Firefox be any
different?

Index: modules/libpref/src/init/all.js
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/mozilla/modules/libpref/src/init/all.js,v
retrieving revision 3.551
diff -u -r3.551 all.js
--- modules/libpref/src/init/all.js	28 Oct 2004 18:54:22 -0000	3.551
+++ modules/libpref/src/init/all.js	19 Nov 2004 20:25:04 -0000
@@ -1213,6 +1213,7 @@
 pref("font.size.variable.zh-HK", 15);
 pref("font.size.fixed.zh-HK", 16);
 
+pref("browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll", false);
 pref("browser.urlbar.clickAtEndSelects", false);
 
 // Tab focus model bit field:

Comment 16

[Isaac]

Seems like that patch would work.  I just set the pref:

 browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll = false

in about:config and it works for me in Firefox 1.0.  Yay!

Comment 17

[louis bennett]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 134649 ***

Comment 18

[louis bennett]

un-duping per bug 134649 comment 40.

Comment 19

[kaldari]

apparently, the pref needs to be set in firefox.js rather than all.js in order to fix this for Firefox.

Comment 20

[louis bennett]

Attachment: Remove #ifndef XP_MACOSX

See also: bug 218315 comment 21. Can someone pick appropriate reviewers for
this?

Comment 21

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

double-read bug 134649 comment 39.

Comment 22

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

> This bug is aggrivating for Mac users, as we expect all text fields in all
> apps to behave consitantly
Depends how recently you became a Mac user. Mozilla browsers have been doing 
click-selects-all on the Mac ever since Netscape Navigator 3.0.

For the original 2000~2001 debate (with Ben and Blake in starring roles), 
see bug 37587. Whichever way you go, the behavior will aggravate many people 
(personally, Safari's click behavior is the thing about Safari that wastes 
more of my time than anything else). However, click-selects-all could be 
made less *surprising* by adding some visual distinction, e.g. bug 78082.

Comment 23

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

*** Bug 287121 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 24

[rstlawre]

With the Windows version, a single click on the address bar highlights the
entire address.  The Linux version however, a single click will place the cursor
in that location.  Which way is it supposed to operate?

Comment 25

[kaldari]

It's supposed to operate as follows (according to OS conventions):
Windows: single-click selects entire address
Linux and Macintosh: single-click places cursor
The proper behavior in Linux was implemented long ago, but the fix for Mac has been stonewalled.

Comment 26

[kaldari]

>For the original 2000~2001 debate (with Ben and Blake in starring roles), see bug 37587.

That debate concerns the behavior across all platforms (and thus mainly concerns the Windows 
version). This bug is specifically about the behavior on the Mac platform. Currently, the Linux version 
conforms to standard unix behavior, but the Mac version is forced to behave like a Windows app. This 
is a straightforward case of OS convention compliance. The patch to fix this bug has been sitting here 
for 4 months. Any chance someone could review it?

Comment 27

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Comment on attachment 173360 [details] [diff] [review]
Remove #ifndef XP_MACOSX

r=me on the change, but for sanity's sake change this bit to:

#ifdef XP_UNIX
pref("browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll", false);
#else
pref("browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll", true);
#endif

This doesn't change the end result, but the firefox.js after processing should
be a bit cleaner.

Comment 28

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

for the branch we are only taking security fixes or regressions from security fixes.

Comment 29

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

Attachment: Updated

Has r=mconnor, asking for approval.

Comment 30

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

(In reply to comment #29)
> Created an attachment (id=189722) [edit]
> Updated
> 
> Has r=mconnor, asking for approval.

I really doubt we want take this change. This is going to be a real usability
issue (especially, in a post-1.0 release). CCing Ben, mconnor and mpt.

Comment 31

[Mike Beltzner [:beltzner, not reading bugmail]]

This seems like a no-brainer. We've heard time and time again that one of the
biggest critiques of Firefox on OS X is that it doesn't behave like an OS X
application. Whether you love or hate the OS X behaviour is a different debate,
IMO. We need to respect the fact that our mac users bought macs, and that most
of their applications respond to clicks in text boxes by placing an insertion
cursor at that point.

We should do the same.

Comment 32

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

Checking in browser/app/profile/firefox.js;
/cvsroot/mozilla/browser/app/profile/firefox.js,v  <--  firefox.js
new revision: 1.61; previous revision: 1.60
done

Comment 33

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

> /cvsroot/mozilla/browser/app/profile/firefox.js,v  <--  firefox.js
> new revision: 1.61; previous revision: 1.60

Mac mouse users now need to *triple*-click their urlbar in order to open a new
location. Can we get some sort of usability test here?

Comment 34

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

or click+drag, or Ctrl-L.  We've kicked this football around forever, some like
it, some don't, we're going with the OS behaviour, end of story.

Comment 35

[kaldari]

>Mac mouse users now need to *triple*-click their urlbar...

Yes, this is now identical to how every other Mac program functions - single click to place cursor, 
double-click to select word, triple-click to select entire line. This should be the normal and expected 
behavior for Mac users. Thanks for fixing this!

Comment 36

[Smokey Ardisson (offline for a while; not following bugs - do not email)]

(In reply to comment #34)
> or click+drag, or Ctrl-L.  We've kicked this football around forever, some like
> it, some don't, we're going with the OS behaviour, end of story.

In Camino and Safari, clicking the favicon (as opposed to the URL) gets you the
entire URL selected with one click.  Dunno if that is something it's possible to
implement in Firefox for people who need one-*click* selection of the entire URL.

Comment 37

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

*** Bug 307369 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***