291516 - Command-Arrow navigation shortcuts should be reenabled

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: Keyboard Navigation, defect, P1)

Description

[Mark Mentovai]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.8b2) Gecko/20050421 Firefox/1.0+
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.8b2) Gecko/20050421 Firefox/1.0+

The fix to bug 254225 hastily eliminated the Command-LeftArrow and
Command-RightArrow keyboard shortcuts from Mac builds.  This was seemingly done
without any discussion.

These keyboard shortcuts have been in every Mac browser since the beginning of
time.  It's one thing if Firefox does not wish to use these keystrokes as its
primary shortcuts or expose them in the Go menu, but it's another thing entirely
to remove them altogether.

All other Mac browsers, including Safari, Camino, and Seamonkey, support the
Command-Arrow shortcuts IN ADDITION  to Command-[ and Command-].  In each case,
the [ and ] shortcuts are the ones visible in the menus, but the arrows still
work.  When bug 117186 was fixed (the Seamonkey companion to bug 254225), the
Command-Arrow shortcuts were allowed to remain.

The Command-Arrow shortcuts are what many users expect, and they should not be
removed.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:

Comment 1

[Mark Mentovai]

Attachment: Restore command-arrow navigation on Mac

Comment 2

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Accel-arrows is a bad combo, since it doesn't work consistently.  To many users,
this would appear broken, especially when focus is not blazingly obvious.  We
dropped the readline/emacs-like keybindings on UNIX for the same reason. 
Shortcuts should always work, regardless of context.

I'm not a big fan of the "jump off the same bridge as your friends" concept of
UI design, but I'll ignore my initial instinct on this and think it over some
more, since I'd rather not be accused of being reactionary.

Comment 3

[Mark Mentovai]

I understand why you wouldn't want Command-Arrow to be the primary shortcut for
paging back and forward, but you also need to consider that, for better or for
worse, most users picking up the Fox for the first time, at least on the Mac,
will expect that shortcut to work.  I don't see any problem with retaining it as
a secondary shortcut, as it has always been in the Fox up until yesterday.

When Command-Arrow means something other than page back/forward, there is UI
feedback, so users are able to recognize that the keystroke is overloaded and
there was an alternate effect by virtue of being in a different context.  When
Command-Arrow does not work at all for paging back/forward, there is no UI
feedback when the user is not in a context for which the keystroke is defined,
and the user is led to believe that something is broken.  I think that the
losses in this latter case, which is what the browser does today, affect a
greater slice of the user base and have far more significant effects than the
problems with the former implementation, which in my mind are comparatively minor.

While I wouldn't want you to jump off the same bridge as your friends, I also
don't think you should throw the baby out with the bath water.

Comment 4

[Mark Mentovai]

There's also the issue of platform parity.  On other platforms, Alt-Arrow works
for page back/forward.  Despite the Mac having both Alt and Control keys, it is
generally accepted on the Mac that Command is the modifier of choice.  It is not
unreasonable for users migrating from Firefox on other platforms to expect that
Command-Arrow will move back and forward through the page history.

(Ditto for the backspace key, which, again, goes to the preceding page in
Firefox on other platforms and in other browsers on the Mac, but that's bug
220590.  Of course, the same focus/context problem exists for that shortcut on
any platform, but it's still present in Firefox and many other browsers.)

Comment 5

[Uri Bernstein]

*** Bug 291593 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 6

[Michael Moulton]

I don't even see why there is argument on this.  It has always worked this way,
the competition also works this way, and the users will expect it to continue to
work this way.  Bring back the Command-Arrow!

Comment 7

[Michael Kurze [:michaelk]]

Cmd-Arrow is also the navigation key for traversing history in the Finder, but only in the non-special 
and non-column mode. Thus, OS X users are prepared to accept its different meanings in different 
Contexts.
Cmd-Arrow is also used to switch back/forward between months in iCal (also a history of some sort), 
but serves for inner-text navigation while editing an appointment.
Among Browsers: Omniweb, Safari, Opera and Camino offer it (tested).

In my opinion a shortcut should not necessarily do the same thing everytime, but should behave as the 
user expects it to.

Comment 8

[[e-mail]]

Let us have the command-LeftArrow and command-RightArrow keyboard shortcuts back.

The default navigation shortcuts ( Command-[ and Command-] ) are troublesome for
some non-US keyboard users.

Example; on my norwegian keyboard I have to press Alt-8 to get [ (Alt-9 to get ]
). So the back shortcut would be something like Command-alt-8, which dont seem
to work!

Comment 9

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Use a Norwegian localization?  In any case, using these keyboard shortcuts
violates the HIG, which I'd forgotten about.  See
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/XHIGUserInput/chapter_11_section_3.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000957-TP30000361-TPXREF66

Barring a massive uprising in 1.1a feedback, I don't expect to restore this.

Comment 10

[Michael Moulton]

Apple is violating its own standards then, as Safari supports Command-Arrow. 
Like I said before, ALL Mac browsers support them.  I have been using Alt-Arrow
on Netscape since 2.x and Cmd-Arrow since I first got a Mac.  I'm sure there are
plenty of other users just like me.  Removing functionality that has existed
forever and exists in the competition is flat out stupid.

Comment 11

[Mark Mentovai]

I suspect that this is about as massive an uprising in feedback as we're going
to see before 1.1a ships.  Should we really alienate early adopters by treating
them as guinea pigs?

Comment 12

[Tom Hessman]

I've used Alt-Arrow shortcuts on Windows for much longer than I can remember,
way before I ever touched Firebird almost a year and a half ago.  When I started
using Macs, I picked up on the Cmd-Arrow shortcuts right away.  One of the
things I love about Firefox is that it is almost identical on all the different
supported platforms, making it easy to jump back and forth.

The key point here is that this feature has existed for a VERY long time, and
that people (i.e. end users, not just us) who used 1.0 and earlier who are used
to it will feel that Firefox is "broken" when they upgrade to 1.1.  When I first
noticed it no longer worked, my first reaction was that some recent fix must
have broken it, until I discovered this bug and learned it was intentional.

The funny thing is that 1.1 is supposed to be a major improvement for Mac users!
 It already is, especially with all of the menu-related bugs that have been
fixed recently, and the new preferences window.  But this is a major
setback...as has been said, every other browser, including Safari, supports
these shortcuts!  The Windows and Linux versions of Firefox support the
equivalent of these shortcuts!  And even without those arguments, the argument
that it is silly to remove a long-standing feature that has a lot of support
should stand...

Comment 13

[Michael Kurze [:michaelk]]

Please excuse my choice of words, but I can't help feeling patronized. I have been using FF since 0.3 on 
PC and since 0.9.3 on my mac. German FF users form a major part of the international adopters and I 
won't drop all my muscle memory and start using a two-hands key combination for such a common 
thing like history traversion. I also use this combination in most other application and they never switch 
any script layouts but instead do the things I expect them to.

Take Panic's Transmit (FTP client) for an example. It uses Cmd-Arrow to switch between client and 
server panes intuitively and still was awarded an Apple Design Award - even for best User Experiece! I 
stopped using FF nightlies for other things than debugging websites and there are others who feel the 
same. Since the latest (localized) releases are bug-driven and use a Gecko version that seems to origin 
in stoneage, I switched to Safari for the time being.

BTW, the feature was not even removed by request. It was just a sideeffect of another feature request 
which could have been resolved as WONTFIX. No one wanted Cmd-Arrow removed, at least I do not 
know any bug that demands it.

Comment 14

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

I'm not meaning to patronize anyone, but if your keyboard is in another
language, it doesn't make sense to use an English version of an app, maybe in
some locales there's no 1.0.x localization though.

As for breaking long-held expectations, we did the same thing for UNIX users
before 1.0, by killing emacs keybindings by default.  This is a lot harder to
selectively enable, so I'm contemplating providing an extension that'll enable
these keybindings for those who don't want to/can't adapt.  We've already said
that shortcuts that don't work depending on focus aren't acceptable once, why
should we cave on Mac where we didn't on Unix?

Comment 15

[Michael Moulton]

You should cave because they were removed on a whim, with no discussion, when
users are clearly asking for the functionality (as seen in the comments here). 
Tom Hessman has it exactly right, users will consider this to be broken if 1.1
comes out without the Cmd-Arrows in place.

Comment 16

[Mark Mentovai]

I'd suggest that there are a great many non-dev users with international
keyboards using international keyboard layouts that, for any of a number of
reasons, are using English-language applications, if not an entire system
configured for English.

This is backwards.  There was never any discussion about pulling this keystroke,
yet it was silently dropped.  Now that there's a good deal of feedback
requesting its restoration, the formerly obscure reasons for its removal
surface.  Even when these issues had been raised in the past ("command-back
doesn't work in certain contexts, why?"), nobody had ever chimed in with "I hate
command-back, please remove it at your earliest convenience."  Killing the
keystroke solves a minor problem by creating a major one.  That's not to say
that the issue isn't valid, but that it should have been properly aired and
discussed before breaking the app for users.  The trigger-happy development
model that we're looking at here unfortunately presents users with an uphill
battle to have their expectations met, to restore feature parity with other
browsers, and to fix what would appear to be a regression to anyone not
following this thread.

Comment 17

[philippe (part-time)]

(In reply to comment #14)
> I'm not meaning to patronize anyone, but if your keyboard is in another
> language, it doesn't make sense to use an English version of an app, maybe in
> some locales there's no 1.0.x localization though.

My Powerbook G4, and my Desktop G4, both have a Shift_Jis keyboard (stock config
sold here in Japan). No matter what OS language I use (English or Japanese), I
have no problem accessing keyboard shortcuts in Safari, or any other app (EN-us
Photoshop, Fireworks,...). With Firefox, it is different. Firefox 1.03 Japanese
localisation, running as a Japanese user has the same problems as FF US-en with
some keyboard shortcuts (see bug 273208). The keyboard shortcuts are mapped to
particular characters (keys), the keyboard layout file does know where those
characters are (file found in /System/Library/Keyboard Layouts).

Comment 18

[[e-mail]]

(In reply to comment #14)
> I'm not meaning to patronize anyone, but if your keyboard is in another
> language, it doesn't make sense to use an English version of an app, maybe in
> some locales there's no 1.0.x localization though.

I prefer to use english language for my OS/applications, but my keyboard have
norwegian layout. As you perhaps know the norwegian alfabet have 3 more letters
than the english one. To get to use them I have to use norwegian keyboard layout!

Thank you!

Comment 19

[Jason Kersey]

I'm going to be naughty and chime in with a me-too here.  This is creating a
poor user experience for those of us on the Mac.  It also breaks a number of
mouse drivers which rely on that shortcut being in place.  Apple's own browser
even uses these shortcuts, so pointing at HIG's seems like a waste of time. 
People aren't going to be switching from the HIG to Firefox, they're going to be
switching from Safari.

Comment 20

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

Bring back the Cmd+arrow key modifiers. Now.

We're not going to be changing keybindings this major after we've shipped a
major release. This breaks compatibility not only with our 1.0 release but also
with Safari for a major action. 

This is not the same as removing emacs keybindings since that was done before
the release. 

Setting appropriate flags and priority fields. 

Comment 21

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

Comment on attachment 181565 [details] [diff] [review]
Restore command-arrow navigation  on Mac

r=[e-mail]

Comment 22

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

Fixed.

Checking in browser-sets.inc;
/cvsroot/mozilla/browser/base/content/browser-sets.inc,v  <--  browser-sets.inc
new revision: 1.49; previous revision: 1.48
done