409684 - Add clickSelectsAll option that's specific to the toolbar search field (search bar)

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Search, enhancement)

Description

[Jason M]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9b2) Gecko/2007121014 Firefox/3.0b2
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9b2) Gecko/2007121014 Firefox/3.0b2

I loathe having a single click select everything in the location bar, so I'm glad that's been made an option. It would be excellent to have the same option for the search bar. When I click there, I almost always want to select the entire contents, but I cannot currently find any option for that on a Mac.

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

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

The search bar follows the same pref as the location bar, "browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll". Does that not work for you?

Comment 2

[Jason M]

Aha. I knew about the pref (which I said I was glad for) but not its overarching nature. Less than obvious, that! ^_^

It's better than nothing, but really, I much prefer having that behavior for the search field and NOT for the URL. Surely I can't be the only one, can I? And would the average user really expect that, when setting a preference specifically denoted for the urlbar, it would also affect the search field? I don't mean to cause needless trouble; this just seems like a quick, easy enhancement that would improve both clarity of function and flexibility of use.

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

Comment 3

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

(In reply to comment #2)
> Surely I can't be the only one, can I?

I wouldn't be so sure ;)

In any case, I don't think we would want to add a pref for this. It seems like a rather uncommon request, and it would be possible to create an addon that will let you tweak the behavior on a per-textfield basis if you really want it. I can give you more details by private email if you're interested in that approach.

I'm going to modify the summary to more precisely indicate the new request, and mark the bug WONTFIX because we don't plan to implement it. Feel free to reopen it if you think I've misunderstood or if you think my rationale is flawed.