644499 - Ctrl+A does not select text in javascript alert

Status: NEW

(Toolkit :: Content Prompts, defect)

Description

[Jimmie Tyrrell]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:2.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:2.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0

The new javascript alert system does not respond to keyboard input Ctrl+A. Firefox 3 on Windows and Mac select the body of the alert's text when that key combination is received. This is an accessibility issue - users without a mouse can not copy text from alert messages. It seems Firefox 4 lost this functionality.

Additionally, clicking on the text and hitting Ctrl+A does not select all of the text. This might be counter-intuitive, and should be categorized as a usability issue.

Side note: Windows follows a good usability pattern of allowing the user to enter Ctrl+C when an error message is displayed. The entirety of the message is saved into the clipboard. Chrome does this as well. I would recommend this feature if the previous bug is also being looked at.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Go to javascript:(function(){alert('testing!')})()
2. Hit Ctrl+A
Actual Results:  
No text is selected

Expected Results:  
The body of the alert message should be selected (primarily for copying into the clipboard).

Comment 1

[Florin Strugariu [:Bebe]]

Yes I can't select the alert message using CTRL+A in build:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:2.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0



The CTRL+C issue would be a nice enhancement  to have.

Comment 2

[Florin Strugariu [:Bebe]]

Regression range for this issue is:

Last good:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:2.0b8pre) Gecko/20101119 Firefox/4.0b8pre

http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/6478c1b83d60


First bad:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:2.0b8pre) Gecko/20101120 Firefox/4.0b8pre


http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/baa6cc2f72e4

Pushlog:

http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/pushloghtml?fromchange=6478c1b83d60&tochange=baa6cc2f72e4Bookmark

Comment 3

[(mostly gone) XtC4UaLL [:xtc4uall]]

I believe the CTRL+A Issue got WONTFIXED already in another Report.
Copying using CTRL+C is possible if the Alert's Text got selected beforehand.

Comment 4

[George Carstoiu]

It's a bit strange that this would get Wontfixed. As long as it used to work until a certain point I don't see why it shouldn't keep on working on FF4.

Comment 5

[Thomas Ahlblom]

It seems like the Ctrl-A problem is general for both Linux and Windows, so this ticket is kind of a duplicate of bug 642567.

Comment 6

[constant_irritation]

This problem is STILL present in Firefox 23.0.1.  C'mon, guys, FIX THIS ALREADY.

CTRL+A in alert boxes was absolutely great for very quickly debugging Javascript.  Who was the genius who decided that alert boxes should be in an HTML-esque child element and then NOT include the option to select all?

Comment 7

[Matthew N. [:MattN]]

Bulk move to Toolkit::Notifications and Alerts

Filter on notifications-and-alerts-component.