433669 - HTML Editor: formatted text at line ends jumps to next formatted piece of text

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Core :: DOM: Editor, defect)

Description

[Robin Pfeifer]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; de; rv:1.8.1.14) Gecko/20080420 FireFox/2.0.0.2
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; de; rv:1.8.1.14) Gecko/20080420 FireFox/2.0.0.2

A word or phrase which is at the end of a line gets selected and formatted with at least two options, of which one is a color (like, bold and blue).

Then, text in another part is selcted and it also gets formatted with two such options. The word or phrase marked first jumps to and attaches itself to the newly formatted piece of text.

A possible workaround is putting an additional space after the last word on the line marked first, which you do not select for formatting.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Write or copy enough text to break into a few lines. Can be done in Thunderbird or any other instance of the embeddable editor.
2. Mark some text at the end of a line but not a paragraph. Can be a word or phrase, can be selected with the mouse by dragging, double-clicking or by keyboard.
3. Format it bold and blue.
4. Do the same to any word or phrase at a different place in the text.
5. At the second formatting change, the first text will jump to the second marked text and attach itself to it.
Actual Results:  
At the second formatting change, the first text will jump to the second marked text and attach itself to it.

Expected Results:  
The text should stay where it is supposed to be.

This bug has been with me since I first used Firefox. At first I thought it was a bug in the about.com editor FreeTextBox, but since it uses the Firefox embedded editor as a basis, and a Greasemonkey-scripted editor for delphiforums.com shows the exact same behavior, it must be a bug in the Firefox editor. True enough it can be replicated in Thunderbird and Seamonkey, too.