38416 - Entire textarea should have edit (I-BEAM) cursor

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Core :: DOM: Editor, defect, P3)

Description

[Blake Ross]

Build ID: 2000050608

As of now, the standard win32 I-Beam cursor only appears over places in the 
textbox (and URL bar) where there's actual text.  Everywhere else, there's the 
arrow cursor.  This feels kind of awkward to Windows users who are used to 
seeing I-beam cursors extend to the length of textboxes, rather than just over 
the text that they contain.

At the very least, I think completely empty textboxes should display the I-Beam 
cursor, indicating to the user that they may type there (current behavior is 
the arrow).

Comment 1

[rubydoo123]

assigning to jfrancis to investigate

Comment 2

[Joe Francis]

mike, simon, any clues?  The same cursor feedback is true for layout in general.  
I guess we want to do something different if we are over an editor.  

Comment 3

[Simon Fraser [no longer active]]

I think some CSS for HTML inputs would fix this. I'll check it out.

Comment 4

[Blake Ross]

The situation here has gotten a little better.  All HTML textboxes now atl 
least have the I-Beam cursor over their entire length (whether they have text 
or not) until they get focus, at which point they display the same before as 
initially reported.

Comment 5

[Blake Ross]

Thanks to mjudge's enderlite, this now works great in the browser (on windows, 
anyways - don't know if ender lite's been turned on for other platforms yet).  
still not in composer, though.

Comment 6

[[e-mail]]

Not in textareas, either.

Regarding Composer: the cursor is an I-beam where there is actual text, as in
the browser, except for the HTML source pane, where even the scrollbars have an
I-beam cursor.

Comment 7

[rubydoo123]

m19

Comment 8

[rubydoo123]

moving to future and adding helpwanted keyword

Comment 9

[[e-mail]]

This appears to work in textfields (and the URL bar) but not textareas.
Perhaps Simon forgot to apply is input CSS to textareas?

Comment 10

[Jesse Ruderman]

Updating summary (textbox -> textarea)

Comment 11

[[e-mail]]

I just fixed this on my PC by changing html.css: the textarea { } section needs
the same cursor: text; as the input { } section.

Comment 12

[Simon Fraser [no longer active]]

Attach a patch, if you please :)

Comment 13

[Blake Ross]

Attachment: patch

Comment 14

[Blake Ross]

r=blake on the patch, since neil made it.  simon, please sr= and let's get this in.

Comment 15

[Blake Ross]

Simon?

Comment 16

[Simon Fraser [no longer active]]

What happens when the cursor is over the scrollbar? Does it change to an arrow?
If so, sr=sfraser

Comment 17

[[e-mail]]

No but that's not the fault of html.css so I filed bug 61921 to cover that.
The workaround is to style the scrollbar cursor in xul.css i.e.
scrollbar {
  cursor: default;
}

Comment 18

[Blake Ross]

Fix checked in, since that is indeed a separate bug (and kin says he already 
has one like 61921 on his list)

Comment 19

[R.K.Aa.]

umm.. after this fix, the ibeam cursor is suddenly "everywhere" there is text at
all. On a plain webpage without forms, for instance. Is this the expected behaviour?

Comment 20

[Blake Ross]

???

I just downloaded a win32 nightly and I don't see it.  What do you 
mean "everywhere" there is text?  The cursor is usually the I-Beam over plain 
webpage text.  Can you post a screenshot of what you're seeing....?

Comment 21

[R.K.Aa.]

Couldn't find a screenshooter that would include cursors. But seems you
understand what i mean.

Thing is: I though linux till now has showed the *arrow* when over text on
wepages, while the *ibeam* has only been used where user could actually input
something. Perhaps I'm even wrong. I like the ibeam anyways - makes it easyer to
know where potential selections actually start. Just had to ask.

Comment 22

[PTRourke]

> umm.. after this fix, the ibeam cursor is suddenly
> "everywhere" there is text at all. On a plain
> webpage without forms, for instance. Is this the
> expected behaviour?

Yes.  I-beam does not indicate editability, but selectability.  Therefore I-beam
should be displayed wherever there is selectable text. (not on submit buttons,
drop-down boxes, images, non-text white space, scroll bars, etc.)

Comment 23

[sujay]

verified in 1/24 build.