Closed Bug 251081 Opened 20 years ago Closed 15 years ago

Ctrl-a should select all, not go to the beginning of a line

Categories

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Product:
Firefox
Component:
General
Platform:
x86
Linux
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
major

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED WORKSFORME

People

(Reporter: kerz, Unassigned)

References

Details

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040615 Firefox/0.9
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040615 Firefox/0.9

I see this in almsot every textbox I hit, including this one, and the URL bar. 
When you hit ctrl-a, it takes you to the start of a line.  I'm sure this is some
old cranky editor shortcut, but I'd prefer my browser not to act like a cranky
editor :).

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.Go to a textbox
2.Hit Ctrl-a


Actual Results:  
Goes to the beginning of the line.

Expected Results:  
It selects all the text, as the context menu hints at with it's underlined A in
the select all item.
bryner's all over this, as our resident linux hippie fixer-upper.
Assignee: firefox → bryner
i hope this will be fixed in 1.0, it's annoying to have to use the mouse every
time to select all or right clicking and clicking select all.
or you could use alt+a to select all
i don't know if you get it, but the purpose of this bug is so that crtl+a works...
I don't think that ctrl-a should be set to select all text on linux, since
ctrl-a is typically used on linux to go to the beginning of the line. 
hmm, i don't know, if you take the new gtk-save-dialog for example, crtl+a does
select all instead of going to the beginning of the textbox... in fact, all the
things i can see in my gnome here are "selected all" when crtl+a'ing.
*** Bug 253864 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
This is a situation where I would find it useful for the browser to be
compatible across platforms.  I use firefox at home on linux, and at work on
windows with no other choice.  In windows, when I focus a textarea and press
ctrl-a it selects all the text in the box.  On linux, as described, it just goes
to the beginning of the line.
If a textbox is not focused, ctrl-a selects all text on the page, in linux. 
That key's behavior should not magically change based on where the focus is.

The final compromise would be to simply make it configurable.  If there's a way
"it should be" according to the developers or community, and a way many users
prefer, there's no way to give us both what we want.
IMO it shouldn't be configurable, because it's not that great a change in behavior.

Ctrl+A should select all text, and Alt+A should be changed to go to the
beginning of the line. Or perhaps the Home key could be used for that instead
(the Home key goes to the beginning of the line on Win32).
Hi all,

I understand peoples saying that ALT-A is the good key conf to select all. And
also those who say that CTRL-A is the good one. 

For me, talking about user experience, I'd say that CTRL-A is the good one. See
other browsers such as Konqueror, where CTRL-A is used... And, as I use FF also
at work, under a win32 env, I'm a bit bored to have to change my way of
selectignall in the urlbar... So, the point is to choose ALT-A or CTRL-A for
both environnement, because, user experience should be the same regardless the
OS used... OK, this is quite a marketing point of view... But it is also a
non-geek-non-linux-expert experience...
Just to point it out, CTRL+A does select all in gVim, so it seems some editors
are changing and beginning to use CTRL+A to select all.
*** Bug 255943 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
As I understand it, Ctrl+A as "beginning of line" is an emacs thing. I think
Ctrl+A has clearly become a standard on the linux desktop as "select all" (Gtk,
OpenOffice, Konqueror, etc.).
Please don't mess with old Unix/Emacs users' muscle memory, not at this late
(way past 0.9) date.

Respect the GNOME keybinding preferences.  If a user sets those to Emacs-style,
Firefox on Linux should go to beginning of line on ctrl-A.

/be
Following the GNOME settings does sound like a good idea, but that's beside the
point here.  Are there any other differences in Emacs style for keybindings? 
I'd say following the GNOME pref for keybindings in general would be a good
idea, but is a separate enhancement bug.

The issue at hand is that currently Firefox does *not* follow the *default*
keybinding.  It also deviates from the GNOME HIG by using a specified standard
keybinding for something else, and by using ALT for a keyboard shortcut.  Just
to reiterate, Mozilla et. al. are essentially the *only* GUI apps to use CTRL-A
to move to the beginning of the line.

...and I just discovered that I can't even Select All in this textbox since
Alt+A is the shortcut to go to the Add CC box.  Even Bugzilla agrees with me
that Firefox's behavior is wrong.  ;)
This will be taken care of for GTK2 by Bug 257405.
Did the fix for bug 257405 fix this bug?  (Test textboxes instead of textareas
because of bug 259810.)
Ctrl-A does now seem to select all in entry text boxes. I guess this can be closed.
Assignee: bryner → nobody
Version: unspecified → Trunk
Worksforme in Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; de; rv:1.9.0.15) Gecko/2009102814 Ubuntu/8.04 (hardy) Firefox/3.0.15
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 15 years ago
Resolution: --- → WORKSFORME
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