251159 - can't cut from page generated from document.write, except with back button

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(SeaMonkey :: General, enhancement)

Description

[Jonathan Baron]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8a2) Gecko/20040709
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8a2) Gecko/20040709

When a page is generated by document.write, you can't cut from it,
unless you use the back button.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Try to cut and paste anything from any page in the example.
2. Go to the next page by clicing "Click here to go on."
3. Use the back button to go back and try it again.

Actual Results:  
First attempt fails.  Second attempt succeeds.


Expected Results:  
I'm not sure!  Perhaps all that is needed is an explanation
in the release notes.  But the obvious answer is that cut/paste
should always work.


This problem may exist only in Fedora Core 2.  I have not tried
other OSs.  But it has existed for a while, through several
builds.

Note that it is not really a problem for ME, because I know the
trick about using the back button.

Comment 1

[Martijn Wargers (dead)]

Well, it doesn't happen for me in windows, using:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8a2) Gecko/20040709
Firefox/0.9.0+

But I do notice that when I select some of the text in that testcase it is
greyed out (like the focus is not on that window).
Going to the next page and then pressing the back button makes the selection
behavior normal again. This might be related to this problem.

Comment 2

[R.K.Aa.]

i can't cut anything in the page - before OR after going back to it.
No "cut'able content" is displayed. I can select and copy though, all i want.

I see another weird bug with the testcase though:
After going back, the fontface changes to something almost unreadable.
Selecting text them makes selection shift to the left/right depending on how
much i have selected. To get the default font again i have to select western or
unicode character encoding (every other time)

Comment 3

[Jonathan Baron]

(In reply to comment #2)
> i can't cut anything in the page - before OR after going back to it.
> No "cut'able content" is displayed. I can select and copy though, all i want.

I should have said "copy/paste" rather than "cut/paste."  I can't cut,
and never could, and don't want to.  I meant "copy."  I can copy text.
I'm not sure what you mean when you say you can select 

> I see another weird bug with the testcase though:
> After going back, the fontface changes to something almost unreadable.
> Selecting text them makes selection shift to the left/right depending on how
> much i have selected. To get the default font again i have to select western or
> unicode character encoding (every other time)

I notice the font change too.  I didn't consider this a bug.  There is
really no reason for the back button to work at all in a situation like
this, with generated content.  At various times in the history of Mozilla,
it has not worked.

But I guess you CAN copy and paste.  So the problem might be specific to
xorg or Gnome 2.6.  What are you using?

Comment 4

[R.K.Aa.]

trunk CVS, Linux, Gtk2+xft, on Fedora core2 test3 or thereabouts
(an upgrade from RH9 via rawhide). I run under KDE though, not Gnome.

Comment 5

[R.K.Aa.]

are you quite sure it isn't a regression that's already fixed?
(Thinking of bug 250692)

Comment 6

[Jonathan Baron]

(In reply to comment #5)
> are you quite sure it isn't a regression that's already fixed?
> (Thinking of bug 250692)

No.  I just got the lates nightly build (2004071405) and it is still behaving
the same way.  I do find that, when I select a region in the generated page,
it is gray.  When I select a region after using the back button, it is dark
blue (and, as noted, the font is different).  So this may be a problem
specific to Gnome.  (The whole Fedora cut/copy/paste thing is in a transitional
state.  You just can't get all the applications to behave the same way.)
(I'm going to try twm tomorrow.)

Comment 7

[Jonathan Baron]

Happens with twm too, so it is not specific to Gnome.  And the problem
is in copying, not pasting.  When I use the Edit menu in Mozilla, the
"Paste" is grayed out when there is nothing to paste, and that is the case.
It works fine with normal pages, but not pages that are generated with
document.write().  It may also be relevant that, when I use View/Source
on these pages, I get the JavaScript that generated them, but when I
right click and use This Frame/View Source, I do get the generated html
code, in very small font.  Document.write() writes to a frame.

Comment 8

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

is this still a problem do you think?
web page longer available, but I can post the html if you need it.

Comment 9

[Jonathan Baron]

(In reply to comment #8)
> is this still a problem do you think?
> web page longer available, but I can post the html if you need it.

Using the latest trunk build, it is NOT a problem anymore.  I can copy from anything:

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686 (x86_64); en-US; rv:1.9a1) Gecko/20060706 Minefield/3.0a1

My memory (which may be wrong) is that this problem has gone away, come back, gone away, come back, several times over the last couple of years.

It isn't a huge problem, but for now it seems to be fixed.

For test cases, use anything in
http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu/~baron/ex/

Comment 10

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to comment #9)
> Using the latest trunk build, it is NOT a problem anymore.  

Thanks for the response. Resolving as such.