429183 - if browser.search.openintab==true and search bar is absent; search page opens in current tab

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: Search, defect, P4)

Description

[Matt]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9pre) Gecko/2008041506 Minefield/3.0pre
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9pre) Gecko/2008041506 Minefield/3.0pre

I have removed search from my toolbars.
I have switched browser.search.openintab to be true.

If I hit CTRL-K, a search page (my default search provider) opens in the current tab.

It should open in a separate tab when browser.search.openintab is true.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Remove search from all toolbars
2. Insure that browser.search.openintab is true
3. Press CTRL-K
Actual Results:  
Search page opens in current tab.

Expected Results:  
Search page should open in a new tab.

Comment 1

[John]

Two things:
1) This happens on a Mac
2) This behavior is particularly problematic if you're used to using Command-K to add hyperlinks to content in content management systems like Wordpress. I post content in many places, and when I use Command-K on a site that doesn't have that function, Firefox loads the search page causing loss of data from the form I was filling out.

Comment 2

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

If you hit command-k on the latest Firefox, then we now move focus to the address bar, with the search-forcing '? ' pre-filled. You can easily force open a new tab from there by doing option-enter.

Overall, I think this is a better flow, than what we had previously. Whilst cmd-k could still open a new tab in this case, I'm not sure that would be totally worth it, and not going to a new tab gives a bit more flexibility about how it is handled e.g. in the case of starting a search then deciding to abort it.

I'm going to mark this as WFM, thouhg if there's any cases I've missed, I'd be happy to discuss.