251073 - Find as you type doesn't support "Link only mode" default start option

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Toolkit :: Find Toolbar, defect, P4)

Description

[Ger Teunis]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040712 Firefox/0.9.1+
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040712 Firefox/0.9.1+

Most likely a known fact
accessibility.typeaheadfind.linksonly and
accessibility.typeaheadfind.startlinksonly
Do not work. No support anymore for default linksonlymode?
Using the ' is correctly working


Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Enable "Find as you type" (Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> Use find as you type.
2. open about:config
3. enable accessibility.typeaheadfind.linksonly or
accessibility.typeaheadfind.startlinksonly
4. start typing

Actual Results:  
links and NON links are found with "Find as you type"

Expected Results:  
only links should be found with "Find as you type"

I know, this is working in progress, I thought it should be reported.

Comment 1

[Owen Marshall (Not reading bugmail)]

I pulled the latest-trunk Firefox from ftp.m.o and tried it with both
accessibility.typeaheadfind.linksonly _and_
accessibility.typeaheadfind.startlinksonly set to true.

Linksonly means Firefox only searches for links. This defaults to true, and
using testcase F on the functional tests, we do not find 789SearchText as we
would expect to do if FAYT failed.

startlinksonly means that we only consider the start of the link. This also WFM
for me on the functional test.

Can you show me a testcase with some instructions to make this work? Or make it
fail on the testcases I provided above?

Comment 2

[Oakwine]

(In reply to comment #1)
> I pulled the latest-trunk Firefox from ftp.m.o

I can reproduce the bug using the latest BRANCH (20040714, WinXP, zip build).

Comment 3

[Daniel Ross]

This bug is the result of development work on the Aviary Branch. So yes, it
should work on trunk. 

Comment 4

[Owen Marshall (Not reading bugmail)]

OK, branch only then? Marking version to be the v. 1 branch.

Comment 5

[Michael Clackler]

Attachment: patch to fix preferences

This patch fixes the following preferences when using the find bar to match the
expected reactions from the "old" FastFind:
accessibility.typeaheadfind.autostart
accessibility.typeaheadfind.linksonly
accessibility.typeaheadfind.startlinksonly

This patch will fix this bug as well as the following:
bug 251633 - find as you type no longer cycles through links beginning...
bug 254592 - Options , Find as you type = off , should respect typeahe...

Comment 6

[Michael Clackler]

setting blocking-aviary1.0 since patch exists

Comment 7

[Michael Clackler]

I have some changes to this patch that greatly improve the implementation of the
preferences.  

I will hopefully have time to update this patch tomorrow.

Comment 8

[Michael Clackler]

Attachment: patch to fix preferences, v2

This patch does a much better job of emulating the typeahead find preferences
as they were using the "old" FAYT.  The following is a list of improvements:
- support for backspace to find previous in repeated character mode
- repeated character changes "in stream" now are found starting from previous
found location instead of starting over from the beginning
- support for normal search for words that begin with double characters
- searches that are started with / look for double characters in normal text
before switching to links-only repeated mode
- probably a few more that I don't remember.  Basically, I can now tell no
differences in the reaction of the finds between this patch and the FAYT
currently on the trunk.

In addition to the bugs mentioned in comment #5, this patch now also fixes:
bug 253994 - Pressing slash when find toolbar is visible but not focus...

Comment 9

[Michael Clackler]

Attachment: patch to fix preferences, v3

I just noticed a few lines of code in the v2 patch that were from a different
bug fix that I needed to remove.  This patch is good.

Comment 10

[:deanis74]

*** Bug 251633 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 11

[David Schontzler]

FAYT has always worked well for me until 1.0PR. I have linksonly set to true,
but it isn't honored. Instead, FAYT searches all text unless I prefix a ' to the
search. It was working as expected in v0.9+.

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040913
Firefox/0.10

Comment 12

[Aaron Leventhal]

I think the default behavior for [x] Use Find As You Type
should be links only. Is that the case with your patch?

Comment 13

[:deanis74]

Why should it be links only?

Comment 14

[Prognathous]

I agree with Aaron that the default should be links only. Clicking links is a
much more common action than searching for words in the text, FAYT for links
only makes the more common action easier and more direct, than the secondary
action (which still only requires "/" or Ctrl+F). 

BTW, Links Only FAYT is also the the default on Seamonkey and IE5/Mac, and for a
reason.

Prog.

Comment 15

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

(In reply to comment #14)

I can't agree, not that we have the find toolbar, searching for links only *by
default* can confuse user.

Still, Was there a reason to remove the UI for the pref!? (and the pref itself,
but that is a bug).

Comment 16

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

argh, s/not/not now s/user/users

Comment 17

[Unknown W. Brackets]

(In reply to comment #15)
> (In reply to comment #14)
> 
> I can't agree, not that we have the find toolbar, searching for links only *by
> default* can confuse user.

I don't know that you understand where people who say this come from.  Let me
try to give an example.

Let's say I go to www.spreadfirefox.com, looking to make a donation.  Because I
have been there once before, and have a reasonable memory, I know that if I can
find a link with the text "donation" in it, I will get where I'm going.

So I type "donat".  However, because of the new functionality that searches all
text when I start typing, I get the text around "points for donating, points for
promoting" selected - not at all what I was looking for.  If I wanted that, I
would have hit Ctrl-F first - I wanted find as you type, which I have been using
for several versions.

Now, let's take an accessability issue as well.  Let's say my coworker, Nicki,
who is almost completely blind and cannot see color, is wishing to make a
donation for the work Mozilla do to make the web more accessable. (yes, she can
use the internet and does, it's just hard.)

If she's looking for this link on the screen, it could seriously take her about
15 minutes to find it, even as prominent as it is (and it also appears in two
places!)  Because she can hardly see, she probably doesn't remember (as if she
ever bothered to take the time to found out) where the link was.

Of course, it can be argued that all she has to do is type 'donat, and she will
get the link.  But my question is simple: how often do you start typing to find
something?  My initial, and very obvious, reaction is to hit Ctrl-F.  I'm a
programmer, and that's a reflex to me.  Firefox is not going to make me just
start typing for searching.

But links are different.  If I start typing "Show dependency tree", perhaps
that's what I want to *DO*.  That makes sense, for me to type an action.

Even with the toolbar, searching is always going to feel less like an action
than following a link.

Further, I can tell you for sure that if Firefox had always done Find As You
Type this way, I would consider it totally useless right now.  If at some time I
had started typing (that's how I found the feature) and it selected just any
text, I would have immediately turned it off and thought, "why is Mozilla
putting such useless things in?"

But when I found it, back a few versions ago, and figured out what it did... I
was ecstatic.  I loved the idea behind it, the accessability, and use right off.
 I could open a site, and just type things I wanted to do - and this is what I
do now.  Sometimes I'll read something, and instead of moving the mouse I'll
just type the link.  It seems so natural.

But what use is finding just text?  I've already got Ctrl-F.  Useless.

To me, this is removing a vital feature, and severely hampering it's use.  Just
as bad as if the keybinding for bookmarks was removed, or replaced with a more
complicated series of keystrokes.  Yeah, it's still there, but it's so hard to
get to it's no longer useful.  Ease was the point of the feature.

This is the reason I am still using 0.9.x.  I will upgrade to 1.x, but only
after I, either by modifying the code or making a small simple extension for
myself, restore the previous functionality.

But maybe that's just me.  Maybe I'm just locked into this.  Maybe people won't
care about Find As You Type anymore, because like I would have... they'll all
have it off.  But... if that's the case, isn't it really useless bloat?

-[Unknown]

Comment 18

[David Schontzler]

I tend to agree with Unknown. I am trying to get used to typing ' and then the
link, but it's been so ingrained in me to just start typing that it is a bit
annoying.

Oh, and even if this isn't deemed worthwhile of being the default behavior,
someone has got to get the "links only mode" working. :)

Cheers.

Comment 19

[carlos]

(In reply to comment #18)
> I tend to agree with Unknown. I am trying to get used to typing ' and then the
> link, but it's been so ingrained in me to just start typing that it is a bit
> annoying.
> 
> Oh, and even if this isn't deemed worthwhile of being the default behavior,
> someone has got to get the "links only mode" working. :)
> 
> Cheers.

(In reply to comment #18)
> I tend to agree with Unknown. I am trying to get used to typing ' and then the
> link, but it's been so ingrained in me to just start typing that it is a bit
> annoying.
> 
> Oh, and even if this isn't deemed worthwhile of being the default behavior,
> someone has got to get the "links only mode" working. :)
> 
> Cheers.
(Type as you find links only)

i dont see why this feature is disabled at all
I'm a regular user not a computer expert or a programmer 
and i dont understand why this has been hidden. 
It's almost like it doesnt , never existed,
i certainly dont have any purpose for find all text ? why use that ?
if your reading the page read it, scroll down line by line. 
Use find dialog to find something out of order. or the little find bar at the
bottom of the screen in 1.0.

The find links is now totally inaccesible
the find dialogue has no reference to it
so it is rather stupid to hide it from the "Type as You Find"

every piece of software or search engine i have ever used 
the default settings, aim to minimize results, clutter and options

"does find all text satisfied this at all?"

please add say F8 to disable enable Find as you Type Links only
with links only default

Comment 20

[Piotr Krukowiecki]

Hi, I'd like to say that I also would like FAYT to search only links.

The reason is that I use *keyboard only* to navigate web pages (FAYT/Tab,
Ctrl+Enter, Alt+Tab). No need for mouse. And searching only for links is the
fastest way to do it. I ralely need to search for the text, not for the links.
Having to type additional "'" character is quite inconvinient.

If you really can't make it default please at least add an option in Preferences
to enable it.

Comment 21

[sadao]

I agree, links only find as you type without a modifier (i.e. w/o ` or /) was
probably the second best feature for Firefox.  I browse the web a lot without
the mouse, and links only FAYT is crucial for that.

S.

Comment 22

[Aaron Leventhal]

Enough people have weighed in. As the module owner and initial developer of find
as you type I want the default to be links only. The pref can be changed to say
"Find Links As You Type"

Comment 23

[Mailer Key]

Enough already. :)   Let's all agree that choice is good, and there should be a
UI to configure fayt however you like it.  'nuff said

Comment 24

[Sophia Poirier]

(In reply to comment #23)
> Enough already. :)   Let's all agree that choice is good, and there should be a
> UI to configure fayt however you like it.  'nuff said

Well, I don't think that's 'nuff, I would add that what everyone seems to be
saying (and what I think as well) is that, beyond needing choices, the 2
defaults should be:  FAYT enabled, links-only mode.

Comment 25

[:deanis74]

(In reply to comment #22)
> Enough people have weighed in. As the module owner and initial developer of find
> as you type I want the default to be links only. The pref can be changed to say
> "Find Links As You Type"

I assume you're referring to Mozilla only and not to the Firefox UI...

Comment 26

[sadao]

I am not too concerned about the default being set to Links only search, I just
really want the option to configure it, preferably through a UI rather than
about:config.

As for the default, I have mixed feelings.  I can see how some people could get
confused, and I can see how some people could discover the very very nifty
feature.  I think that's a decision for the developpers to make.

Someone someplace made a useful comment about having a little info window pop up
on the first FAYT use.  That could be a good way of avoiding freaking out people
who accidentally hit the keyboard while browsing.

Comment 27

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

p4 priority - not a blocker. if a reviewed patch materializes, please nominate
for aviary approval. 

Comment 28

[Peter van der Woude [:Peter6]]

*** Bug 263143 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 29

[JM Imbrescia]

For the past several revisions the default behavior has been for typeahead to be
links only by default.  I think it should stay that way, I don't believe that
the casual users that we've begun to attract will be confused as chances are the
very idea of typeahead will be new to them so they won't have an expectant
behavior for it anyway.

Regardless of that decision, a patch that fixes it so users can at least
configure their browser back to the old behavior inside the builds would be great. 

Comment 30

[Lorenzo Colitti]

Attachment: 6-line patch

This patch makes typeahead honour the value of
accessibility.typeaheadfind.linksonly. It's a 6-line change with practically
zero impact.

Comment 31

[Lorenzo Colitti]

Comment on attachment 161563 [details] [diff] [review]
6-line patch

Ben, can you look at this and possibly approve for aviary? blake seems to be
MIA. ;-)

Comment 32

[Lorenzo Colitti]

Requesting aviary approval once again to get on the radar, now that there is a
new, very simple (=low-risk) patch.

Comment 33

[Ger Teunis]

Will the new patch allow to 'escape' the "link only mode" using a key?

Normal behavure is : "normal search" escaped(using ') to "link mode"
A "link mode" escape to "normal search" should be possible.
Otherwise it wouldn't be a "default start option"

Comment 34

[Ger Teunis]

Something like this will allow a '/' escape on "links only mode"?

change
gFindMode = (evt.charCode == 39 || (gTypeAheadLinksOnly)
into
gFindMode = (evt.charCode == 39 || (gTypeAheadLinksOnly && evt.charCode != 47))

Go easy on me, not a moz-dev :)

Comment 35

[Lorenzo Colitti]

Ger Teunis, could you please refrain from modifying blocking-aviary1.0 flags? 
Thanks.

RATIONALE: at this late stage, it will already be difficult to get a patch this
simple reviewed and checked in. It may not solve your problem, but it solves the
original bug report in only 6 lines and thus (I hope) stands a chance of moving
forward, unlike the previous patch which has been awaiting review for over a
month and a half.

Comment 36

[Lorenzo Colitti]

But you're right, it would be better to be able to use "normal mode" by using / .
Updated patch coming soon.

Comment 37

[Ger Teunis]

Sorry about the blocking-aviary1.0 flag set to -, I was replying and got in an
mid-air collision. 
It looked like I was deliberatly was setting it to - (I wouldn't dare :) )

Comment 38

[Lorenzo Colitti]

Attachment: 6-line patch with Ger's suggestion

Same as before, except allows / in links-only mode as well

Comment 39

[Lorenzo Colitti]

Comment on attachment 161567 [details] [diff] [review]
6-line patch with Ger's suggestion

Moving review request

Comment 40

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

Comment on attachment 161567 [details] [diff] [review]
6-line patch with Ger's suggestion

please don't request approval until you've got a fully reviewed patch. thanks.

Comment 41

[sadao]

Sorry for being so illiterate about this, but how can I apply Lorenzo's patch to
my copy of FF 1.0PR?

Comment 42

[Bernd Kuemmerlen]

How big is the chance of this fix being ready for the final 1.0 release?

Comment 43

[Daniel Lindkvist]

Attachment: updated patch that works 04-10-14

I tried to apply the latest patch today but it didn't work, so here's an
updated version of it. I have tried this for about a week now with different
builds and it seems to be ok. Hope this gets in before 1.0

Comment 44

[Blake Ross]

Fixed. Thanks for the patch!

Comment 45

[Peter van der Woude [:Peter6]]

*** Bug 265060 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 46

[Albert Ting]

I just tried the pre-built 1.0rc2 on linux and this is still a problem.  Is this
still a bug or did the patch not make it in 1.0rc2? 

Comment 47

[Nickolay_Ponomarev]

*** Bug 267947 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 48

[Albert Ting]

I just tried the latest 0.10.1 PR windows release and this is still not working.

Comment 49

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

(In reply to comment #48)
> I just tried the latest 0.10.1 PR windows release and this is still not working.

Becuase it was fixed later.

Comment 50

[Albert Ting]

(In reply to comment #49)
> > I just tried the latest 0.10.1 PR windows release and this is still not 
> > working.
> 
> Becuase it was fixed later.

Thanks for the clarification. I had assumed this would make it into the final
1.0 release scheduled for tomorrow.  That's too bad, but oh well.

Comment 51

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

(In reply to comment #50)

It did (notice: hidden pref only)

Comment 52

[Albert Ting]

(In reply to comment #51)
> It did (notice: hidden pref only)

Thanks. I didn't realize there were hidden prefs via the "about:config" feature.
 Works great!

Comment 53

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

vrfy'd with recent 1.0.1 and trunk firefox builds.