406706 - Contents of the location bar should be selected on single click, OS X

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: Address Bar, defect, P3)

Description

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

I would like us to take the location bar selection behavior on windows and apply it to OS X.

Previously this change has been vetoed due to platform conventions
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=233977#c31
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=233977#c34

However, the location bar isn't a normal text field so I believe it is worth breaking platform conventions in favor of user behavior and the nature of the control.  Here is my specific rational for the change, the three most common interactions get easier, the least common interaction gets harder:

+ A) enter an entirely new location (using the awesomebar)
+ B) copy the URL to the clipboard to share it
+ C) paste a URL
- D) edit the existing URL to go to a new location based on the current
location

Comment 1

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

Note: this is also being discussed for Linux in bug 406662 

Comment 2

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

Definitely for OSX.

Comment 3

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

Attachment: patch

Comment 4

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

interesting note:  faaborg tells me that safari 2 did this, but that safari 3 does not.

Comment 5

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

Well, I'm reasonably sure Safari 2 did it (can anyone confirm?).  If so, I think the change in Safari 3 was a either a mistake, or someone won a HIG battle royal.

Comment 6

[Stephen Donner [:stephend] Not actively reading bugmail]

(In reply to comment #5)
> Well, I'm reasonably sure Safari 2 did it (can anyone confirm?).  If so, I
> think the change in Safari 3 was a either a mistake, or someone won a HIG
> battle royal.

2.0.4 doesn't do it here on OS X 10.4

Comment 7

[philippe (part-time)]

Safari 1.3 doesn't do that on OS X 10.3.9, and as Stephen says in comment 6, Safari 2 on 10.4 doesn't do it. Safari has never done this. period.
IE Mac always treated the single click as insert the cursor (goes back to OS 9 days).

See also my comment in bug 403508 comment 2.

(Why does this discussion have to be revisited again ?)

Comment 8

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

>Safari 1.3 doesn't do that on OS X 10.3.9, and as Stephen says in comment 6,
>Safari 2 on 10.4 doesn't do it.

It looks like I was wrong.  Oddly, this comment implies that IE on OS X started it, and then at some point Apple added the same behavior to Safari:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=134649#c58

>(Why does this discussion have to be revisited again ?)

Anyway, regardless of what other browsers are up to, I want to revisit this decision because I believe users go to new locations, copy URLs and paste URLs all far more than they tweak existing URLs.  This is partly because user's mainstream users don't understand URL structure, and partly because most URLs are very difficult to tweak (like google results, or pages at Amazon).

Comment 9

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

Comment on attachment 291399 [details] [diff] [review]
patch

r=me code-wise, I'm assuming that comment 2 means mconnor and beltzner are on board!

Comment 10

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

Comment on attachment 291399 [details] [diff] [review]
patch

seeing official a-ok for the bearded one.

Comment 11

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

fixed

Checking in firefox.js;
/cvsroot/mozilla/browser/app/profile/firefox.js,v  <--  firefox.js
new revision: 1.246; previous revision: 1.245
done

Comment 12

[AndrewM]

(In reply to comment #8)
> ... This is partly because user's
> mainstream users don't understand URL structure, and partly because most URLs
> are very difficult to tweak (like google results, or pages at Amazon).

Apologies for the bugspam, but I gotta disagree on this. It's true that Google itself (and even more so, the official Google toolbar) adds all sorts of useless (to the user) gunk at the end of search URLs, but if on the other hand you use the Googlebar Lite extension (https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/492/) it's very easy to tweak. Search for 'firefox', for example, and all you need to do is strip off the useless "&ie=UTF-8" part at the end and you're left with: http://www.google.com/search?q=firefox

When you click around Amazon, on the other hand, you get nothing but horrible-looking URLs (although maybe a few years down the line, if <a ping> support becomes widespread, that could change :)

Comment 13

[Tony Chung [:tchung]]

Verified fix on Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.4; en-US; rv:1.9b3pre) Gecko/2007122704 Minefield/3.0b3pre

Comment 14

[Uri Bernstein]

This "fix" was a nasty surprise for me: it took me a while to understand why I kept overwriting URLs when I clicked to the right of the URL and did some backspaces/typing, as I was always used to.

Given the destructive nature of this change (and the fact that apparently no browser on Mac ever used the new behavior, per the comments above), I beg to reconsider.

Comment 15

[Justin Allard]

Personally, I hate this change.  It is annoying to get used to considering that every other browser on OS X does not select the location bar text on a single click.  It ruins consistency with every other text field a user encounters in OS X.  This could be a major issue for me upgrading to Firefox 3 unless there is a preference that can be changed either in the browser preferences or in about:config.

Comment 16

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

Your about:config pref is "browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll", false

Comment 17

[Justin Allard]

(In reply to comment #16)
> Your about:config pref is "browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll", false
> 

This makes me much happier.  Thank you for telling me what entry that was.  However, I still wish that this was never changed in the first place.