Closed Bug 407241 Opened 18 years ago Closed 10 years ago

Make it easier to select text that is part of a link

Categories

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Product:
Firefox
Component:
General
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 50673

People

(Reporter: nerijus, Unassigned)

References

(Depends on 2 open bugs, Blocks 1 open bug)

Details

(Whiteboard: [Advo])

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; lt-LT; rv:1.8.1.10) Gecko/20071126 Fedora/2.0.0.10-1.fc8 Firefox/2.0.0.10 Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; lt-LT; rv:1.8.1.10) Gecko/20071126 Fedora/2.0.0.10-1.fc8 Firefox/2.0.0.10 Sometimes I'd like to select an URl by dragging a mouse, but it's often difficult to do because hovering a mouse above an URL makes it a link. I'd like the first and last letters of URL not to act like a clickable URL, so that people could easier select them without "clicking (selecting)" them accidentally. Reproducible: Always
Are you talking about links in web pages or something else? Making the first and last letters of links unclickable would be pretty confusing, IMO.
Yes, I mean links in web pages. An example - try to select text of a link called "Learn more about the Foundation..." on http://www.mozilla.org/. I move mouse as close to letter "L" as I can and try to select text by moving mouse to the right with left button pressed, but instead of selecting "Learn more...", the text after "Learn more" is selected as well as Mozilla Store, Other Mozilla Software columns.
Summary: selecting of small URLs → selecting a text of a link by mouse
Version: unspecified → 3.0 Branch
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 17 years ago
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE
IMHO it's not the same - in bug 50673 it's more about selecting inside the link, while here it's about selecting of a text from the beginning of the link.
Status: RESOLVED → UNCONFIRMED
Resolution: DUPLICATE → ---
Yes, we should fix this. Current thinking: - If your motion while selecting the text in the link is exiting the link in the top/bottom part, you're probably trying to drag, and we should behave accordingly. - If you are selecting text (ie. staying on the current line of text), we should do text selection. Adding this to the list of Paper Cut bugs.
Blocks: cuts-control
Holding Alt whilst selecting will allow you to select the text, but if you release the button it will pop-up the Save As dialogue. Canceling that leaves you with the correct selection though.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
Alt + mouse movement usually drags the current window in Linux, so it does not work here.
Text selection outnumbers dragging of links as an operation people actually do by orders of magnitude, so we should definitely look at improving this. See comment 5 for current approach. (mostly wanted to update the bug title to make it clear what we're trying to accomplish :)
Summary: selecting a text of a link by mouse → Make it easier to select text that is part of a link
That's true, but dragging links outnumbers selecting text *in links* by at least an order of magnitude as well, in my experience. It's annoying when you need to do it, but it happens pretty rarely (and I usually get around it by starting the selection before or after the link and then deleting as necessary after pasting).
> and I usually get around it by starting the selection before or after the link and then deleting as necessary after pasting Sometimes it's impossible to select the text in a link AT ALL. That's the main point I reported this bug - it does not matter if I "start the selection before or after the link and then delete as necessary after pasting" - either a link is opened or a lot of other text is selected. P.S. I almost never drag links, but, if it really outnumbers selecting text *in links*, could it be made so that dragging starts to work only when I start dragging from the middle of URL (see comment #1).
Version: 3.0 Branch → 4.0 Branch
Sorry, not comment #1, but Description.
Version: 4.0 Branch → 5 Branch
Depends on: 695984
FYI, Opera does allow to select a part of the link.
Hardware: x86 → All
Version: 5 Branch → 9 Branch
Version: 9 Branch → 10 Branch
Seeing that it's unassigned and there's no patch. It's probably best to just change the version to Trunk.
If bug 378775 is solved by selecting text instead of dragging, this bug will be too.
Depends on: 378775
Version: 10 Branch → Trunk
(In reply to Nerijus Baliūnas from comment #7) > Alt + mouse movement usually drags the current window in Linux, so it does > not work here. As a workaround, is there any browser setting (maybe in about:config?) to change the modifier key, or is this hard-coded? Incidentally, should this bug perhaps not be assigned to Core rather than Firefox? The same problem plagues SeaMonkey.
Whiteboard: [Advo]
Can anyone answer my question from Comment 15? That is, should this bug be reassigned to the Selection component of the Core product, or should I file a new issue for SeaMonkey?
This bug affects me. I would also like to be able to select text from within a hyperlink, in some way that doesn't break linux desktop conventions. Right now it is impossible to select text within a hyperlink at all for me. It's a papercut bug for sure.
Holding down Alt+Super when selecting works for me. (I'm using KDE, but I suspect the desktop environment is irrelevant as long as it doesn't reassign these modifiers.)
Incidentally, if Alt+Super works in the general case, perhaps this should be conspicuously documented somewhere, and then this bug can be closed.
Alt+Super works on Linux+Window Maker and Windows.
This bug is exactly the same as bug 50673. I've posted a WIP patch there.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 17 years ago → 10 years ago
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE
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