339522 - Alt+Up/Down Arrow or F4 doesn't select any menu item of the searchbar popup

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: Search, defect)

Description

[Steffen Wilberg]

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.8.1a3) Gecko/20060528 BonEcho/2.0a3

Alt+Down Arrow or Up Arrow doesn't select the first (or last) menu item of the searchbar popup.

Steps to reproduce:
1. Focus the search bar and press Alt+Down Arrow.
2. Press Alt+Down Arrow again.

Actual result:
The popup is displayed after step 1. But the first menu item is not selected until you press Alt+Down Arrow again (step 2).

Expected result:
The fist menu item should be selected after step 1.

Comment 1

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

For what it's worth, you don't need to press Alt+Down again, just Down. The autocomplete widget behaves the same way, but form <select>s select the first or last item as you describe. Where is the expected behavior for Alt+Down/Up defined? Is this bug just about consistency with "normal" <select> dropdowns?

Comment 2

[Steffen Wilberg]

This is not mainly about consistency, although xul menus and html selects already work that way: menus pop up with the first menu item selected if you press Alt and the first letter; selects pop up with the currently item selected if you press Alt+Up/Down Arrow.

This is about ease of use, i.e. the number of times I need to press a button to display the popup and change the current engine. Thinking it over again, instead of the first or last menu item, the current search engine should be selected when you press Alt+Up/Down Arrow or F4.

Comment 3

[Pam Greene]

Just to clarify, while nominating for blocking FF2:

The search-engine selection menu currently behaves like the location-bar autocomplete menu: alt-down (for example) opens the menu but doesn't select any of its items.

The proposal is to change it to work like other types of drop-down menus, and have alt-down open the menu with the current engine already selected.

Comment 4

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

Why should this block Firefox 2? The search bar popup has always been this way, and needing to pressing down an extra time when selecting an engine using the keyboard certainly doesn't seem to me like something that should block the release. Use Ctrl+Up/Down if that extra keypress is too much :)

Comment 5

[Pam Greene]

(In reply to comment #4)
> The search bar popup has always been this way

Has it?  Okay, never mind then.

Comment 6

[Liz Henry (:lizzard)]

This still behaves in a similar way. When in the search bar, alt-shift-down shows the dropdown menu, and pressing alt-shift-down hides it.  If rather than hiding it, you use the down arrow alone, it is possible to page through the list of site and url listings.  And on a Mac, command-down and option-down both have this effect. Other dropdowns that need a click or a command to activate exhibit similar behavior -- the menu pops up, but no options are selected by default until the user gives a command to page down.