973381 - Option+swipe navigation cannot be disabled, works in an illogical way and is not documented

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Keyboard Navigation, defect)

Description

[Nicolas Barbulesco]

Firefox 27 on Mac OS X Mavericks.

I was writing text on a page, and suddenly the page was gone, Firefox was opening other pages, dialog boxes came… 
What happens ?! 
Is Firefox closing tabs and windows ?! 
This is panicking. 
After calming things down, I (sort of) understand what happened. 

When I have the Option key pressed and my fingers happen to go down or up or left or right — which is quite easy ! —, Firefox goes back and forth in the tab's navigation history. Furthermore, the “sense” of the navigation is the opposite of common sense.

This is annoying. Leaving the current page must not happen against the user's will, it can easily mean data loss.

I have never enabled such thing. As far as I know, this is undocumented.

I don't think this comes from Mavericks. Safari does not do this. So I think this problem comes from Firefox.

Can you please remove this annoyance ? If not, can you please at least provide a way to disable it ?

Thank you.

Nicolas

Comment 1

[Justin Dolske [:Dolske]]

Option? Or Command(⌘)? Both Command-RightArrow and Command-LeftArrow are long-standing keyboard shortcuts for navigation, and work in both Safari and Chrome.

Option-RightArrow and Option-LeftArrow do nothing for me in Firefox.

Comment 2

[Nicolas Barbulesco]

(In reply to Justin Dolske [:Dolske] from comment #1)

> Option? Or Command(⌘)?

Option.

> Both Command-RightArrow and Command-LeftArrow are
> long-standing keyboard shortcuts for navigation, and work in both Safari and
> Chrome.

Yes, I know, I use them a lot.

> Option-RightArrow and Option-LeftArrow do nothing for me in Firefox.

I think you have misunderstood, Justin. The only key I had pressed was Option. The rest was just my fingers moving - not clicking - on the trackpad.

Comment 3

[Justin Dolske [:Dolske]]

A two-finger left-swipe / right-swipe is also a standard navigation gesture (Safari and Chrome both do it). The option key isn't involved with that, though... Works the same way if it's being pressed.

So I'm not sure exactly what you're talking about.

Comment 4

[Nicolas Barbulesco]

I encountered this bug not only when moving leftwards and rightwards, but also when moving upwards and downwards.

In Safari, moving my fingers leftwards, rightwards, upwards and downwards scrolls the page. Which is the expected behaviour. In Firefox, this scrolls the page too. Which is fine.

The bug occurs when Option happens to be pressed at the same time. In this case : 
 - Firefox does havoc. 
 - Safari scrolls as expected.

Comment 5

[Ioana (away)]

Please check if the issue occurs using Firefox in safe mode (with your addons disabled):
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Safe+Mode

Or on a new, empty profile:
http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/Managing-profiles#w_starting-the-profile-manager

Comment 6

[Nicolas Barbulesco]

I reproduce this bug in Firefox 27 with a new clean profile.

Comment 7

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

so you are saying in firefox it scrolls through tab history?
Isn't this firefox design?

Comment 8

[Frankie]

In Mac Firefox (and Chrome, possibly others) holding down the Option key activates gesture commands. This is by design.

Nicolas, open about:config -> search for "gesture" or "swipe" -> turn off the unwanted features. Or just stop pressing Option.

Comment 9

[Nicolas Barbulesco]

(In reply to Frankie from comment #8)

> In Mac Firefox (and Chrome, possibly others) holding down the Option key
> activates gesture commands. This is by design.
> 
> Nicolas, open about:config -> search for "gesture" or "swipe" -> turn off
> the unwanted features. Or just stop pressing Option.

Thank you, Frankie, these imps must be at play. I had never heard of them.

These features are undocumented, and very secret. This fact is a part of the issue I reported.

Another part of the issue is that they work in opposite of good sense, I don't think they are designed to do that. I will play with the gestures, and I will report my further findings, if any.

Regarding "about:config", what is the recommended way to disable the gestures ? Putting what value in which key ? Is this documented in some place ?

Comment 10

[Nicolas Barbulesco]

Here is what I find in about:config : screen photo http://pbrd.co/1gQyZo6 

I confirm that, even if we deem normal the occurring of actions with Option-gestures, the actions which occur are wrong. And they are inconsistent with what is in about:config. 

I encounter these behaviours which are illogical and inconsistent with about:config :

 A) Option-two-fingers-going-left goes to the next page. 
 B) Option-two-fingers-going-right goes to the previous page. 
 C) Option-two-fingers-going-up goes to the next page. 
 D) Option-two-fingers-going-down goes to the previous page. 

Furthermore :

Then I deleted the values in the following secret prefs : 

 - browser.gesture.swipe.down 
 - browser.gesture.swipe.left 
 - browser.gesture.swipe.right 
 - browser.gesture.swipe.up 

And nevertheless I reproduced all the annoying behaviours.

Comment 11

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Justin, does comment 10 sufficiently define a problem?

(In reply to Nicolas Barbulesco from comment #10)
> Here is what I find in about:config : screen photo http://pbrd.co/1gQyZo6 

Nicolas, in future please attach screen shots to the bug report using "add an attachment", not http://pbrd.co/

Comment 12

[Frankie]

Hmm, I was mistaken. In Mac Firefox, the browse.gesture.swipe.* settings in about:config only affect three-finger swipes. Option + two-finger swipe "just works", which is suboptimal. I have not found documentation of this behavior.

Comment 13

[Justin Dolske [:Dolske]]

I still don't really understand the description/problem, and wasn't able to reproduce.

Comment 14

[Frankie]

On Mac OS (definitely Mavericks but possibly earlier) if you hold down the Option key, the following gestures happen in Firefox:

two-finger swipe up or left: Browser Back
two-finger swipe down or right: Browser Forward

These gestures are not controlled by either about:config or by Mac System Preferences.
This behavior does not occur in Safari.

Comment 15

[Nicolas Barbulesco]

(In reply to Frankie from comment #12)

> Hmm, I was mistaken. In Mac Firefox, the browse.gesture.swipe.* settings in
> about:config only affect three-finger swipes. Option + two-finger swipe
> "just works", which is suboptimal. I have not found documentation of this
> behavior.

It "works" in an illogical way, on my Mac.

(In reply to Frankie from comment #14)

> On Mac OS (definitely Mavericks but possibly earlier) if you hold down the
> Option key, the following gestures happen in Firefox:
> 
> two-finger swipe up or left: Browser Back
> two-finger swipe down or right: Browser Forward

On my Mac, on Mavericks, these occur reversed.

 A) Option-two-fingers-going-left goes to the next page. 
 B) Option-two-fingers-going-right goes to the previous page. 
 C) Option-two-fingers-going-up goes to the next page. 
 D) Option-two-fingers-going-down goes to the previous page. 

This is illogical. 
This adds to the puzzling of the user who is not aware of this "feature". 
Furthermore, if I were a user wanting to use this finger navigation, I would get the navigation reversed and I would quickly become crazy.

> These gestures are not controlled by either about:config or by Mac System
> Preferences.
> This behavior does not occur in Safari.

Indeed, in Safari I don't encounter these problems.

Frankie, in your comment 14 you reproduce what I encounter, except that your navigation and mine occur in opposite ways. This difference may come from this : https://www.apple.com/magicmouse/images/software.jpg Recently, Apple divided the population in 2 halves. Apple introduced a reversed scrolling behaviour, and the scrolling behaviour is now controlled by a check box in the System Prefs.

Comment 16

[Nicolas Barbulesco]

> Frankie, in your comment 14 you reproduce what I encounter, except that your
> navigation and mine occur in opposite ways. This difference may come from
> this : https://www.apple.com/magicmouse/images/software.jpg Recently, Apple
> divided the population in 2 halves. Apple introduced a reversed scrolling
> behaviour, and the scrolling behaviour is now controlled by a check box in
> the System Prefs.

To be exact, the check box for me is in the Trackpad System Prefs : http://images.apple.com/ca/magictrackpad/images/preference_panel.jpg 
Depending on whether you use a mouse or the trackpad, the controlling check box is in the Mouse System Prefs or in the Trackpad System Prefs. 
Frankie, you can play with these check boxes and see what this gives in Firefox.

Comment 17

[Rich M]

I think it's default behavior. Option/alt-two-fingers-going-up goes to the next page and option/alt-two-fingers-going-down goes to the previous page. To turn off, open about:config and change mousewheel.with_alt.action to 0.