290831 - selection does not get removed when selecting outside of certain blocks

Status: NEW

(Core :: DOM: Selection, defect)

Description

[Caleb]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8b2) Gecko/20050418 Firefox/1.0+
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8b2) Gecko/20050418 Firefox/1.0+

Open the attached testcase (taken from bug 289792).

1. Select any text in one of the divx
2. Click outside of the DIV

The selection inside the DIV stays instead of being removed.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:

Comment 1

[Caleb]

Attachment: testcase

Comment 2

[Robert O'Callahan (:roc) (email my personal email if necessary)]

We've never removed selection in that case. You're clicking in dead space, and
if you don't click on anything, you're not selecting anything or moving the
caret, and if you're not selecting anything or moving the caret, there is no
need to remove the selection.

Comment 3

[Caleb]

Robert, but this bug triggers some other side-effects.

And not only that, I think that it worked properly in 1.0.x.

I think that because of this, you cannot start your selection from a "dead area".
Try it in the attached testcase.

Also, check this testcase https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=180821
from Bug 290374.
You can only start your selection form inside that DIV...

IE works properly in this case. I'd like someone who's using 1.0.x to test this bug.

Comment 4

[Chris]

I just tested both testcases in Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US;
rv:1.7.7) Gecko/20050418 Firefox/1.0.3 (MOOX M1), and the behavior is the same
as the current trunk build.

Comment 5

[Caleb]

Thanks. 

Looks I was confusing this behaviour with IE's.

You can keep it as invalid if you like, but I still believe that it is a bug and
the behvaiour that Firefox is showing is incorrect.

In both Opera 8 and IE 6:

 - You can start a selection from outside the DIV and pull it inside and it will
select the text inside the DIV, in FF you cannot.

 - The text gets deselected in the DIV when you press on the "dead zones",
because otherwise it gives you the feeling that the mouse click wasn't
registered. After all even though you're pressing on a dead zone, you are
"focusing" it so the selection should be gone.

I don't have Konquerer installed so I can't test on it, but these 2 major
browsers are showing this behaviour and I believe that it should be a part of FF
too.

Comment 6

[Caleb]

Can I reopen this bug? Maybe as an "enhancement", it really bothers me :/

It seems that the selection gets removed on some of the so-called "dead zones"
(which are totally empty to the user, but the browser probably has an object there).

Comment 7

[Caleb]

Reopening as an enhancement since by the looks of it this behaviour was always
in Mozilla... Although I'm kinda sure that I didn't see it before 1.0.3 :/

Anyways, IE and Opera let you start your selection from "dead zones" and also
clicking on "dead zones" will kill the current selection, which makes sense from
the user perspective since you _are_ clicking on something (a dead zone in this
case) and something should happen.

And since there are dead zones which DO kill the selection (zones that are close
to the text), this could be quite annoying.

Plus 2 major browsers have this funcionality.
You will also notice in GMail's Rich Text editor that selecting text, and then
clicking below it (on an area that has no text) will not remove the selection,
which sometimes that's what people are trying to do in order to remove a selection.

Comment 8

[Caleb]

Ok here's an example of what I'm talking about (An example of, why should
clicking on a "dead zone" in one site be different than the other).

Take roc's blog: http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roc/

Select some text, and then click on the cyan (or whatever color that is)
background that's on the left/right.

You will notice that your selection gets removed.

Now go to this page:
http://www.betanews.com/article/WinHEC_Brings_Longhorn_MiniTablet/1114445161
Select some text, and then click on the blue background on the sides. The
selection won't get removed!

Comment 9

[Eli Friedman]

Taking so I don't keep losing this bug.

Comment 10

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The bug assignee is inactive on Bugzilla, so the assignee is being reset.