280129 - Standard dropdown keys don't work with search engine with keyboard

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Search, defect, P2)

Description

[Aaron Leventhal]

The search field, which is to the right of the URL bar, has no key for dropping
down the list of search engines.

Alt+down arrow should work on all platforms
F4 should work on non-Mac platforms.

Related: bug 263853 for the autocomplete widget.

I think Thunderbird's quick search uses the same widget, which is why it also
sufferes from this problem.

Comment 1

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

See bug 200884. Ctrl+Up an Down are used to choose different items. I suppose
this is about displaying the actual list (like Alt+Down in the addressbar)?

Comment 2

[Aaron Leventhal]

Okay, changing summary.

No one will discover Ctrl+down so you might as well not have those keys available.
Gotta use the standard keystrokes for things so people can figure out the controls.

Comment 3

[Aaron Leventhal]

Gavin, do you still have plans to look into this? Alt+down/F4 should be the same
as clicking the down pointing arrow for the location bar or search field.

Comment 4

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

Yes, I have been trying to get this done as part of bug 235204. The problem I'm
running into is that the menu seems to steal focus from the textbox when it
appears, so subsequent keypresses aren't seen.

Comment 5

[Aaron Leventhal]

Gavin:
- How does this one related to bug 263853 -- that one has a patch for related
stuff? Not a DUPE is it?
- Are you looking for keypresses when the dropdown is open so that it can close
itself on Alt+down/F4?
- I think you can make the popup list a child of the textbox if you want the
textbox to still see key events that bubble up.

Comment 6

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

(In reply to comment #5)
> Gavin:
> - How does this one related to bug 263853 -- that one has a patch for related
> stuff? Not a DUPE is it?

This bug is about the search bar, that one is about autocomplete widgets in
general. The search bar actually contains an autocomplete widget, but it needs
to be special cased since in that case we don't want the history, we want the
search engine list.

> - Are you looking for keypresses when the dropdown is open so that it can close
> itself on Alt+down/F4?

I'm catching all Alt+Down/F4 keypresses and toggling the dropdown's visibility
each time.

Comment 7

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

Why is the enignes list more important than the history dropdown? I think we
should "still" open the history dropdown when Alt+Down/F4 is pressed *and*
enable tabbing to the engine button when the search widget is focused, use bug
283273 for that.

Given that, i think this is a wontfix.

Comment 8

[Aaron Leventhal]

I'm skeptical, because:
- The history dropdown is already discoverable in the normal way when you begin
typing in the field.
- In my opinion, Alt+down/F4 should do what it normally does -- basically click
in the down pointing arrow.  That's what people expect.
- Putting a button that appears inside a textfield in the tab order would just
be weird

IMO, the discoverable, known way is the most usable way.

Comment 9

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

changing search engines is less important than history here.  We need
better/different UI for selecting/managing search engines anyway, but lets keep
those standard combobox shortcuts doing the expected action.

Comment 10

[Firefox Bug Husbandry Bot]

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1527381