88743 - Ctrl-W tries to close the message compose window

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 72352

(MailNews Core :: Composition, defect)

Description

[rob]

When composing a message, I hit Ctrl-W because I wanted to delete a word.
Instead, a dialog popped up asking if I really wanted to close the window.
Ctrl-W means "close" on Windows, but on Linux it should delete the previous
word, as it does in the rest of Mozilla on Linux.

Comment 1

[Jean-Francois Ducarroz]

-->varada

Comment 2

[Ninoschka Baca]

According to the Mozilla specs "Ctrl+W" should close the current window.
(http://mozilla.org/mailnews/specs/compose/Comp_Menus.html). I also
see what you mean by other areas of mozilla on linux deleting the previous word
(i.e. the URL bar, Preferences' text boxes)

As a workaround you can try customizing your preferences
(http://www.mozilla.org/unix/customizing.html#keys)

Adding jglick to Cc: list so she is aware of this issue.

Comment 3

[varada]

I found this funny enough to be worth a mention here. I have another bug
assigned to me - bug #84168 whose complaint is that Ctrl+W does nothing if focus
in address/subject area. Make up your mind guys!!! :-)

Comment 4

[rob]

Whoa there! You're not talking about taking away Ctrl-W as "delete word"
entirely, are you? On Linux, Ctrl-W never means "close window", and anything
which closed the window when I hit Ctrl-W would be a serious bug.

The behavior of Ctrl-W as "delete word" is assumed to be correct in other bug
reports, as well.

The person who reported Bug #84168 is apparently unfamiliar with Unix
text-editing shortcuts.

Comment 5

[timeless]

<reporter: read, others: ignore>
[e-mail] wrote:
> Whoa there! You're not talking about taking away Ctrl-W as "delete word"
> entirely, are you?
We talk about everything, even killing babies and backing out xbl.

> On Linux, Ctrl-W never means "close window",
Hrm, linux is a kernel or an operating system, the basic linux has no concept 
of windows and as such sets no standards. on keyboards there are keys and they 
don't set standards for interpretation either. on linux there are text editors, 
vi, pico, emacs, and if you can prove they all always use the same keybindings 
then ...

> and anything which closed the window when I hit Ctrl-W would be a serious
> bug.
So switch the keybinding from ctrl to alt, the qa politely pointed to the 
description of how to do this (if you're lazy, edit>preferences>debug>{can't 
remember} change 17 to 18). I don't care but the mozilla decision was that 
accelerators would be bound to ctrl by default on linux.

> The behavior of Ctrl-W as "delete word" is assumed to be correct in other bug
> reports, as well.
not when they're reported about windows or macos. we don't make assumptions, 
people make annoying and inaccurate assertions (based on their poorly conceived 
assumptions).

> The person who reported Bug #84168 is apparently unfamiliar with Unix
> text-editing shortcuts.
as you are apparently unfamiliar w/ the mozilla command shortcuts.

the person you insulted is the QA contact for this component. in general 
insulting people in bugzilla is rude, impollite, and improper. in specific 
insulting qa contacts, especially those who are managing your bugs is akin to 
shooting yourself in the foot and expecting others to sympathize.

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/ui/accessibility/mozkeyintro.html
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/ui/accessibility/mozkeylist.html

Comment 6

[rob]

I did not intend to start a flame war, or to insult anyone. If it is an insult
to not be familiar with every aspect of Linux, it's a scary computing world
we're in.

I do not expect Mozilla to act like vi or emacs, which are special cases in
terms of most input (nevertheless, Ctrl-W and Ctrl-U work in both of them). I do
expect it to act like almost every UNIX program which accepts text input -
specifically, anything based on GNU Gettext (for the command line), Qt, GTK+, or
many other graphics toolkits. Even though very few things are standardized in
UNIX, Ctrl-W and Ctrl-U are common to an astounding number of programs, and to
people who use them, they become as familiar as hitting the backspace key.

timeless, I didn't report this bug about Windows or MacOS. I reported it about
Linux. The other bug was also reported about Linux. Dragging Windows and MacOS
into this issue is entirely irrelevant.

Comment 7

[rob]

Incidentally, I meant GNU Readline, not Gettext. Whoops.

Comment 8

[Kathleen :Brade]

rob--does the word actually get deleted and then the window tries to close or 
does the window only try to close?

Comment 9

[rob]

The word is not deleted - only the question window comes up.

Comment 10

[R.K.Aa.]

This is the behaviour it was decided on in bug 51570, see comment:
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51570#c9

Comment 11

[R.K.Aa.]

um..additional additional comment:
RFE bug 72352 that probably covers this problem.

Comment 12

[Akkana Peck]

Bug 72352 isn't likely to be fixed any time soon, because the way key bindings
are implemented, they can't be changed once they're set up (meaning, by the time
prefs are read, it's too late) and the people who designed the key binding
mechanism are off working on other things.

But you can make a customized binding, since delete-word is an editor command
and thus is bindable via XBL.  You'll have to change your accel key to alt
instead of control, since otherwise you'll still have a conflict with W to close
the window (that's a XUL binding and can't be turned off unless you unzip the
jar files and edit them every time you install a new mozilla build).

See http://www.mozilla.org/unix/customizing.html#keys for more information about
custom key bindings.

Comment 13

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

taking all of varada's bugs.

Comment 14

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Duping per comment 11.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 72352 ***