306197 - Escape key inconsistency (closes most preference subdialogs but not Cookies/Exceptions dialogs)

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: Keyboard Navigation, defect)

Description

[Simon Bünzli]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8b4) Gecko/20050826 Firefox/1.0+
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8b4) Gecko/20050826 Firefox/1.0+

The difference between windows and dialogs is often hard to tell. The former are
usually closed using Ctrl+W, the later using Escape. However many windows can be
closed with both shortcuts (Bookmark/Download/Extensions/Themes managers, Page
Info, Print Preview) while some can only be closed using Ctrl+W (Download
actions/Cookies/Permissions), although the latter resemble much more closely to
dialogs - they sport a Close button and no menu bar.

One option would be to remove Escape from the former list of windows. Since
Escape is however easier to hit than Ctrl+W and the latter windows could pass as
dialogs for the average user, I propose adding the possibility to close them
using Escape to them as well, for consistency reasons.

This is not a dupe for bug 283613, since removing the Escape shortcut from the
former list of windows is an alternative option (see bug 277544 for the Mac only
version of this request). See bug 199424 for the opposite request (consistency
for Ctrl+W), which is mostly met.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open the Download manager, hit Escape
2. Open the Cookies manager, hit Escape

Actual Results:  
The former window is closed, the latter isn't.

Expected Results:  
In both cases, the same should happen.

Comment 1

[Przemyslaw Bialik]

I can confirm that beside cookie managers these windows are not responding to
esc key:
- dom inspector
- page source
- help contents (esc worked on 1.0)
- all (3) windows launched from Options -> Content
- Options -> Downloads -> 'View & Edit Action' window

My vote.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.9a1) Gecko/20051013
Firefox/1.6a1

Comment 2

[Mike Beltzner [:beltzner, not reading bugmail]]

There's a Mac-only version of this, too, as bug 277544. I'd appreciate it if someone could do the "default OS behaviour" analysis for Windows (someone's "stolen" my w32 laptop for the moment) to see if we need to make this different for the two platforms.

Comment 3

[Dan Kinnunen]

Update: I see this reported problem too, Firefox doesn't adhere to this convention for this particular dialog.  All other dialogs seem to be ok and I can dismiss them with the esc key.

Comment 4

[Simon Bünzli]

*** Bug 356010 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 6

[Madhava Enros [:madhava]]

Escape should really only close a dialog if there is a "Cancel" button for it to be bound to.  Menus, context or menubar, should also close on Escape.  Modeless windows (so, no cancel button, and usually with some window-controls (the red x on windows, the triple LEDs on mac, etc.), typically have some other dismissal key-combination associated with them already (cmd-W, alt-f4, etc.), so there's no need to use Escape (which could often be more profitably be used for some in-dialog canceling need).

Comment 7

[Simon Bünzli]

(In reply to comment #6)
> Escape should really only close a dialog if there is a "Cancel" button for it
> to be bound to.

... or a single "Close" button.

Comment 8

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

>I propose adding the possibility to close them
>using Escape to them as well, for consistency reasons.

While this makes sense for internal consistency, it messes up external consistency.  If users build up muscle memory for closing windows with the esc key while useing Firefox, they will become frustrated when they attempt the keyboard command in other applications and it doesn't work.  I recommend we follow platform conventions, and only allow windows to close with the standard keyboard shortcuts (alt-F4, command-w).

Comment 9

[Johannes Buchner]

If this ever gets decided, I put some patches in bug 399998 that enable escape in the two dialogs cookies&permissions. I understand the issue behind it now though. 
As I user, I was surprised that some windows/dialogs in Preferences>Content close with Escape, and some don't, while peeking into each window one by one. I didn't recognize the difference between dialog & window there.

Comment 10

[Johannes Buchner]

Given the bug Bug 277544 and since this might be a partially OS-dependent issue (user experience wise), I forgot to mention that I use Linux. Maybe a seperate bug for linux users?

Also I saw that one could patch this easier with 
<key keycode="VK_ESCAPE" command="cmd_close"/>

Comment 11

[Olaf van der Spek]

(In reply to comment #8)
> While this makes sense for internal consistency, it messes up external
> consistency.  If users build up muscle memory for closing windows with the esc
> key while useing Firefox, they will become frustrated when they attempt the
> keyboard command in other applications and it doesn't work.  I recommend we
> follow platform conventions, and only allow windows to close with the standard
> keyboard shortcuts (alt-F4, command-w).

I prefer Escape. Works in plenty of Windows apps, except those that use 'non-standard' toolkits.

Comment 12

[Matthew N. [:MattN]]

While working on in-content preferences, I was reminded of this inconsistency.

Comment 13

[Steve]

Due to a chronic RSI injury, I began using Dragon NaturallySpeaking for pretty much everything. One of the most frustrating challenges with this is using Firefox.

It's very irritating that when I say "dismiss" (which is bound to the escape key), nothing happens. If I'm in the location bar and I accidentally type something in, Firefox happily shows the drop-down with suggested websites. To me the expected behavior of pressing escape would be to close this drop-down. But instead, with Firefox, I'm forced to CLICK in the body of the webpage to change the focus back there. And clicking seriously hurts as I'm sure anyone with the sort of injury can attest.

The same goes with any of the file menus, if I say something that accidentally opens the View menu for example, saying "dismiss" (escape key) does nothing at all. Whereas in every other Windows application, the menu would be closed.

Also, if I try to find something in the page (think control+F), I enter my text, find what I'm looking for in the page, and then I have to frigging CLICK in the page to change the focus from the find text box back to the page.

Enabling the escape key for these would really save me a lot of headache.

And yes, I've checked, actually pressing the physical escape key does nothing either. So don't blame Dragon for that ;-)

Comment 14

[Johannes Buchner]

Hi Steve,

sorry to hear that you suffering from chronic RSI. I do not know too much about it, so please don't take my reply in the wrong spirit.

First, I was wondering why you don't use the mouse with the other hand, but I guess both must be affected in your case. I know that mice exist that you can operate with your feet.

This link may be more helpful for you: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/968370
F6 is a shortcut that focuses to the web page. Perhaps you can tell the language recognition software to send this to the application.

For search, Escape works for me to get the focus back on the web page, same for the menu. I am on Linux though, you might have a Windows-specific issue there (worth opening a bug for).

Comment 15

[Ian Moody [:Kwan] (UTC+1)]

This appears to have been fixed by the move to in-content preferences.  Unable to reproduce in Fx55 or Fx58.