263375 - arrow keys in text boxes don't follow standard windows convention when text is selected

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Core :: DOM: Editor, defect)

Description

[Howard]

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

In any textbox in Firefox, including the location bar and the google search box,
when text is highlighted and the left arrow key is pressed, the cursor should
move just before the last letter of text.  Instead, firefox moves the cursor to
the beginning of the text.  

In the following example assume the following text is highlighted:

The quick brown firefox jumps over the lazy internet explorer dog.
^
Currently pressing the right arrow key places the cursor before the "T" marked
with the carot above.

The quick brown firefox jumps over the lazy internet explorer dog.
                                                                 ^
Standard Windows convention should place the cursor before the "." at the end of
the sentence.  

It just makes editing anything in the browser awkward for anyone used to typing
anything in Windows. 


Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.  Type "apple" in the address bar.
2.  Press Home
3.  Press Shift-End
4.  Press the right arrow key

Actual Results:  
The cursor moves to the beginning of the text instead of before the last
character in the text.

Expected Results:  
Moved the cursor before the last character in the text.

I know this seems silly, but it makes a big impact with touch-typing and usability.

Comment 1

[Jesse Ruderman]

Firefox's behavior matches that of Internet Explorer, Word, and Win32pad.  On
the other hand, Notepad and Opera do behave the way you want.  I don't see a
clear "standard" and I find Firefox's behavior more predictable.

Comment 2

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Marking invalid, since I think doing what Word and IE do would be "standard
Windows convention"