62496 - [meta] problems with browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll behavior

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Core :: DOM: Editor, defect, P3)

Description

[Jesse Ruderman]

This is a tracking bug for bugs that are annoying when the 
browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll pref is turned on.  Some of them only happen 
when clickSelectsAll is on, and some of them are just more annoying when it's 
on.

These bugs will become more visible/important if either of the following two 
bugs is fixed:
bug 37587 turn the pref on by default on Mac and Windows
bug 62023 make the pref visible so you don't have to go to prefs.js to enable it

Comment 1

[Jesse Ruderman]

Assigning to me for tracking.  Feel free to steal this bug if you're working on 
the dependencies and want to own the tracking bug.

Comment 2

[Jesse Ruderman]

Adding two bugs that mpt pointed out on bug 37587:
bug 78082 [clickSelectsAll] use pointer cursor when hovering over url bar
bug 78083 [clickSelectsAll] right-click on unfocused url bar should select 
contents

Comment 3

[Jesse Ruderman]

Blake, want to work on these so we can fix bug 37587 without breaking too many
things?

Comment 4

[Blake Ross]

I don't need this meta bug on my list.

Comment 5

[Peter Lairo]

HTH: I've noticed that the following pref makes selection behave exactly as I
would expect in Windows (from bug 125695):

// Do NOT select the entire URL when you click in the URL bar.
user_pref("browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll", false);

- single click&drag to select, double click selects all)

Comment 6

[Peter Lairo]

This bug and all its dependent bugs are a result of the incorrect default
behaviour of selecting the entire URL by just clicking in it once. No other
textstring is selected by one click (IE is broken too!). It is counter the
standard expected behaviour. Also, all users know that they can select a
contiguous string with a double-click.

Therefore, please make this bug go away by making the following line the default:

user_pref("browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll", false);

Comment 7

[Vaclav Dvorak]

Peter: _many_ people would hate you for that. Not me, coincidentally, but a
great many would. And it would break IE-parity.

Comment 8

[Stuart Parmenter]

I'm using 1.3b and all.js has browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll set to true, but I
am forced to tripple click the urlbar to select it.  Whats going on here?  Is
this just busted?  Is there a bug filed on this?

Comment 9

[Stuart Parmenter]

ah, I see.  It does actually select if you click in the middle, but not if you
click at the end... still, whats up with this?

Comment 10

[Vaclav Dvorak]

Pavlov: get a current build, this should now be fixed by a patch in bug 116441.
The patch added a new hidden pref - browser.urlbar.clickAtEndSelects - that is
set to true by default, except for the Mac.

Comment 11

[David Bolter [:davidb] (NeedInfo me for attention)]

Mass un-assigning bugs assigned to Aaron.

Comment 12

[Rory O’Kane]

The browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll preference was removed in Firefox 75. See bug 1621570 for discussion of the removal of this preference. Bug 1621570 comment 7 gives the reasoning behind it.