310611 - Scroll with Up/Down arrows doesn't appear to work

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox :: Keyboard Navigation, defect)

Description

[vr8ce]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8b4) Gecko/20050908 Firefox/1.4
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8b4) Gecko/20050908 Firefox/1.4

With Firefox 1.0.x, after displaying a page, using the up/down arrows will
scroll the page up/down a few lines at a time.  A text cursor does *not* appear
on the page doing this unless the page is clicked on.  However, with Deer Park
Beta 1, a text cursor *always* appears on the page, and the first time the Down
arrow is used, it shifts all the way to the bottom of the page.  This makes
viewing a page with the keyboard (which I use almost exclusively) extremely
difficult.  Because installing Deer Park (in a separate folder) screwed up my
Firefox 1.0.x installation, I now have to live with this or uninstall Deer Park
and re-install 1.0.7.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Type in a URL and press Enter.
2. When the page is displayed, press the down arrow key.
3.

Actual Results:  
Page jumps all the way to the bottom, and text cursor appears at the bottom, as
if the page was clicked on.

Expected Results:  
Scrolled a few lines down (without a text cursor being placed on the page).

Comment 1

[Adam Guthrie]

Looks like you have caret browsing turned on. Press F7 to toggle it off and see
if you can still reproduce this.

Comment 2

[Aaron Leventhal]

You've turned on caret browsing. Hit F7 while in content to toggle it off.

Or turn it off via the option under accessibility in advanced preferences.

Comment 3

[Aaron Sloman]

(In reply to comment #2)
> You've turned on caret browsing. Hit F7 while in content to toggle it off.
> 
> Or turn it off via the option under accessibility in advanced preferences.

This problem has irritated me for a long time. I was just about to report it as a bug when I found this bug report. In my case it was apparently random whether Down arrow key worked in a new window (or after refresh). Usually it would take me to the bottom of the page (extremely irritating) sometimes not.

Eventually I found that if I clicked first in the window it would work properly (scrolling down). Then, much later I found that if I first hit UP arrow in a new window then down arrow would work thereafter.

Now I have found that it was a result of my making a preferences selection which I had NO idea would produce this consequence and I still don't see why it does have this consequence.

There is nothing about 'caret browsing' in the advanced preferences panel (Using Linux with Firefox 20051111 Firefox/1.5). However I now see that if I turn off "allow text to be selected with the keyboard" (I assume that's what some people refer to as 'caret browsing'?) then the problem goes away -- but I lose the ability to select text. Why can't I have both proper scrolling and caret browsing? I don't mind if the caret has to go to bottom of window before scrolling starts.

I have wasted a lot of time looking for the cause of this problem. If the panel had warned me that using keyboard to select text would stop scrolling working in a new window I would not have selected it.

The comments above suggest that this is an intended feature. However to me it looks like a bug. If I use Up arrow *first* in a new window scrolling works as expected even if I have turned on the select feature.

Why should a user have to think of pressing Up in order to scroll Down ?

Why should the Down arrow jump to bottom of window if text selection has been turned on, but then stop jumping to bottom of window after you have used the up arrow?

Is this really somebody's idea of how to design a good system?

It does not conform to the definition of 'caret browsing' here
http://www.mozilla.org/access/keyboard/proposal#IX._Differences_Between_Caret_Browsing_

At least I know now how to get what I want: turn text browsing on, and press Up first in all new windows. It seems daft to me.

I wonder if this is the cause of bug 308911?

(I assume I don't have the authority to undo 'leave as resolved invalid'
otherwise I would!).

Aaron

Comment 4

[Aaron Sloman]

(In reply to comment #3)

Apologies -- when I wrote:
> Why should the Down arrow jump to bottom of window if text selection has been
> turned on, but then stop jumping to bottom of window after you have used the up
> arrow?

I meant 'page' not 'window'.

Comment 5

[Adam Guthrie]

Aaron, feel free to file a new bug if you think that caret browsing doesn't behave like it should, but this bug really doesn't deal with that.