424541 - Can't mix mouse and keyboard in choosing location bar suggestions

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Address Bar, defect)

Description

[Dan Keshet]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9b4) Gecko/2008030318 Firefox/3.0b4
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9b4) Gecko/2008030318 Firefox/3.0b4

Both the mouse and the keyboard may be used to highlight suggestions from the location bar.  They both change which suggestion is highlighted.  For example, if you mouse to Suggestion A, then press "down", the highlight moves to the selection below Suggestion A.  

However, only using the keyboard moves the suggestion into the location bar.  When there is a long list of suggestions, merely seeing that a suggestion is highlighted isn't enough to tell you whether pressing return will load it; you have to remember whether you moused there or keyboarded there, or look up at the URL bar (which often has a very similar-looking URL in it, if you keyboarded, then moused to a suggestion).

It's very common for me to hover over a suggestion, then type "return" and have firefox attempt to load the URL of the search terms, not the highlighted suggestion.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Type bookmark/history search term in the location bar.
2. Mouse over an alternative.
3. Press return
Actual Results:  
Attempts to load URL consisting of search term.

Expected Results:  
Load URL of highlighted suggestion.

Comment 1

[Sylvain Pasche]

Thanks for your report. This behavior is intentional and changed since Firefox 2, see bug 408723.

The reasoning is explained in bug 408723 comment 53: "When the address field is focused, it should load the url in addressbar.value. What the popup is doing or any state of it should have no affect on what the Enter key does."

When you move your mouse on the autocomplete results, the address field is still focused and that's what will be taken when you press enter.

Comment 2

[Sylvain Pasche]

this is rather a WONTFIX

Comment 3

[lkcl]

this is a decision you're going to regret making - i'm serious about that.
"moving the mouse" is your decision and basis for "WONTFIX"??

you've _got_ to be joking.

so.... what you're saying to me is:

* that anyone who has a touchscreen that has hardware-uncontrollable jitter,
  which is very common on cheaper commodity smartphones and PDAs
* that anyone who lacks the same level of physical coordination that you have,
  people like my uncle who is dyslexic, and also who is just simply not
  _used_ to the concept of a mouse
* that anyone who has a touchpad or an IBM-like mouse nipple
* that anyone who has an "absolute" positioning touch screen that's nooot
  quiiite calibrated exactly so that they have to "touch" the screen first
  and then make visual adjustments a few millimetres
* that anyone who has an "absolute" positioning graphics tablet that's
  disconnected from their screen, such that they have to "guess" the real
  location and then move the mouse pointer to the "real" location.

the gist of what you're saying is that all of these people can **** right
off.  is that correct?  is that a fair assesment of your simple statement?

i've seen all of the above usage scenarios.

you are in a _minority_, dude.  you have a very expensive computer.  you
probably have a 1600 x 1200 monitor.  you have a 3-button on-desk mouse.

if firefox was restricted to only being used by yourself and by people like
you, then, clearly, there would be no problem.

... but it isn't, is it?  firefox is used on many different types of hardware, with many different types of input devices.

so - please explain to me: how are you going to code around hardware jitter from low-cost touchscreen devices?  how are you going to code around people's lack of physical coordination - are you going to tell most of the people who would love to use linux that they have to meet _your_ level of coordination accuracy before it will be useable???

whatever the bloody hell happened to "user friendly"?

oh - that's the name of a cartoon, not an actual goal of the mozilla foundation or part of its charter.

sorry - silly meee, my mistake.  i'll shut up now, knowing that it was my fault for thinking that you cared or had any responsibility to your users.

_why_ am i going _on_ about this??? why the **** should _i_ care???  i must be stupid or something.

*sigh*.

Comment 4

[Sylvain Pasche]

I think there is a misunderstanding here.

Nobody is saying that you can't use your mouse/touchscreen device or anything with the autocomplete widget.

If you type something in the address bar, the autocomplete dropdown will appear and you can click with your pointer device on any entry and that will be selected. If you move your mouse on an entry and press enter, it will load what is in the address bar, and not the entry that is highlighted.

The majority of users will either use their mouse to select an autocomplete entry, or will use their keyboard arrows to move on the selected entry and then press enter. In both of these common situations, the autocomplete will work as everybody expect.

Comment 5

[lkcl]

> I think there is a misunderstanding here.

 yes.

> Nobody is saying that you can't use your mouse/touchscreen
> device or anything with the autocomplete widget.

 correct.

 however, nobody around here but me is realising what that combination means:
 it renders firefox 3 beta 4 unusable [with touchscreens and other
 absolute-positioning devices, and other circumstances where the mouse
 pointer requires extraneous movement]

 i'll leave it to you to work it out, because this is simply taking up
 too much of my time to get it through to you.

 _do your research_.  go get a 6in USB wacom tablet for $USD 100.

 set it up as an "absolute" pointer, and use it as your main mouse,
 for a week.

 i don't want to hear about the results.  don't call me.  don't email me.
 
 just do it.



> If you type something in the address bar,

 yup.

> the autocomplete dropdown will appear

 great.  with you so far.

> and you can click with your pointer device on any entry

 hold it right there!!!

 click usually implies "move first".

 unless by a complete coincidental fluke the mouse pointer _happens_
 to be at the prerequisite correct location where the autocomplete dropdown
 displays its warez.

 so - your logic is flawed, already.

 this is one of the reasons why you don't understand the problem:
 you don't have the level of imagination required to model the issue
 correctly in your head.


> If you move your mouse on an entry and press enter, it will load what
is in the address bar, and not the entry that is highlighted.

 ok.

 that has nothing to do with the bug i am describing - the one which has
 been "closed" and marked as a duplicate of this one.

 let's try again.

 FOLLOW.

 THESE.

 INSTRUCTIONS.

 VERY.

 VERY.

 CAREFULLY.

 AS.

 I.

 ORIGINALLY.

 DESCRIBED.

 IN.

 423875.

 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=423875

 ok.

 let's begin again.

 1) move your mouse into the region approximately two inches directly
    below the url bar.

 2) type, in the url bar, "goo".

 if, like me, you use googlemail, google.com and other sites, you should
 at this point have an autocomplete drop-down of maximum size, comprising
 20 or so web sites.  [if you don't, then pick appropriate text in 2 which
 works for you]

 the mouse pointer should now be somewhere in the middle of this autocomplete
 dropdown area.

 UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU MOVE THE MOUSE POINTER.


 3) press the tab key.

 4) report back to us EXACTLY which item is highlighted.

  is it:

 a) the item at the top of the autocomplete dropdown?
 b) the item directly below where the mouse happens to be?

 a) is the _correct_ anticipated behaviour
 
 b) is the _wrong_ behaviour which is **** me off.

 is that clear enough, now?

 _forget_ the mouse.  _forget_ any mouse clicks.  don't even _touch_ the mouse
 other than to move it into the location where it causes problems.

 the problem is due to the mouse pointer's _location_ due to the stupid
 decision to do "auto-highlighting" in the autocompletion drop-down.

 ok????

> The majority of users will either use their mouse to select
> an autocomplete entry,

 yep.

> or will use their keyboard arrows to move on the selected entry and then
press enter.

 yep.  and a few will use "tab", like i do, because it's quicker to hit
 "tab" with my left hand than it is to locate the up-down arrows [with
 my right], the position of which varies from keyboard to keyboard.

 ... and the tab key doesn't :)

>  In both of these common situations, the autocomplete will work as
everybody expect.

 wrong.

 as described repeatedly until i'm blue in the face: if the mouse
 happens to be in the middle of the area where the autocomplete
 dropdown happens to be, the "index" of the entry displayed does
 not start at zero, it starts from where the mouse pointer happens
 to be.

 that is _counterintuitive_ behaviour.  more importanty, it is utterly
 unpredictable.  more importantly than _that_, it requires extra effort
 on the part of the user: it requires that the user move the mouse out
 of the way of the autocompletion drop-down area.

 

Comment 6

[Sylvain Pasche]

What you describes seems to be exactly bug 420804.

This wasn't clear in your comment 3 that you were referring to that issue, but your last comment seems to make it clear this is the one you would like to get fixed.

I'll give you an advice: it would help if you could be more concise, and go right to the facts. No need to yell in uppercase, being rude and so long. Doing so will just annoy people trying to help.