310986 - gmail autocomplete sees unexpected mouseover events

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Core :: DOM: Events, defect)

Description

[Brian Ryner (not reading)]

I have not been able to distill a testcase for this, but I'm filing it because
it's a high-profile site.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Log into gmail
2. Start composing a new message
3. Focus the To: field
4. Position the mouse pointer a bit below the To: field
5. Type the first part of an address so that autocomplete opens.  For this to
work, there must be multiple matches for the string you typed.
6. Tab out of the To: field

Result: the address the pointer was over is selected
Expected result: the first address in the list should be selected

The problem seems to be that making the autocomplete widget appear causes a
mouse move to be generated that didn't really happen, which makes it think the
user had selected the address under the pointer.

Comment 1

[Brian Ryner (not reading)]

Nominating as a blocker.  I've heard from several people that this had caused
them to send mail to the wrong recipient.

Comment 2

[David Baron :dbaron: (⌚️UTC-4, no longer working on Mozilla)]

IIRC, we don't send mousemove, but we do send mouseover/mouseout (from bug
20022).  And I think we should.  This seems more like a UI bug in gmail --
hovering over something and then tabbing out shouldn't cause something to be
selected -- i.e., it shouldn't end up selected if the user had moved the mouse
there (but not clicked) and then tabbed away.

Comment 3

[David Baron :dbaron: (⌚️UTC-4, no longer working on Mozilla)]

Anyway, gmail is down and has been for 20 minutes, so I can't test this now...

Comment 4

[Brian Ryner (not reading)]

Attachment: testcase

To run this testcase:

1. move your mouse below the "insert div" button
2. tab to the button and hit space to activate it

The mouseover event for the new div is logged to the textarea.	Oddly, this
happens only if the div is inserted after placing the pointer there -- I tried
the same test but with the div there from the start, hidden, and in that case
no event was generated from making it visible.

Comment 5

[Brian Ryner (not reading)]

I guess I failed to mention that this problem doesn't happen in 1.0.

Comment 6

[David Baron :dbaron: (⌚️UTC-4, no longer working on Mozilla)]

But does it happen in 1.0 if you move the mouse a pixel or two while it's over
the popup?

Comment 7

[Brian Ryner (not reading)]

It does, yes.  The complaints I'm hearing are from people who are mainly using 
the keyboard, so that slight mouse movement doesn't happen.

That said, I adapted the testcase to work with IE, and it seems to give a 
mouseover event in this case as well.

Comment 8

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

will evaluate for rc1

Comment 9

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

I noticed this issue a while ago. I discussed it with someone (Martijn?) and we
decided that it was not our bug.

Comment 10

[David Baron :dbaron: (⌚️UTC-4, no longer working on Mozilla)]

(In reply to comment #7)
> It does, yes.  The complaints I'm hearing are from people who are mainly using 
> the keyboard, so that slight mouse movement doesn't happen.

Well, it does happen if your keyboard and mouse are on the same wobbly keyboard
tray.

I'm pretty confident we can call this a bug in gmail:  they're breaking the
model of how the mouse works in user interfaces -- moving the pointer should
never cause an action (but may cause visual feedback about what actions clicking
might cause).  Only clicking (or using the scroll wheel or other fancy new
features) should cause an action.

Comment 11

[Martijn Wargers (dead)]

(In reply to comment #9)
> I noticed this issue a while ago. I discussed it with someone (Martijn?) and we
> decided that it was not our bug.
Now I remember it too. I had a deja vu about this, didn't know where it was
coming from.

Comment 12

[Brian Ryner (not reading)]

I think the reason that gmail takes the selected item in the dropdown when you
tab out is so that you can do:

a<down><down><tab>

It could be though that the notion of "selected" when arrowing needs to be
different from the notion of hovering over the item.

Comment 13

[David Baron :dbaron: (⌚️UTC-4, no longer working on Mozilla)]

(In reply to comment #12)
> It could be though that the notion of "selected" when arrowing needs to be
> different from the notion of hovering over the item.

It certaintly does.