Clicking in the search box selects all text rather than allowing an insertion point
I think this has changed recently - it is very annoying.
If I click at a point in the search box, the entire contents of the search box get selected.
See my typing is bad and I type a search and make a spelling mistake, I don't notice until the search comes up. I then try and select the point to correct the spello and get the entire string selected rather than my cursor at the correct point.
All Replies (6)
I don't know about Mac, but the selecting of the whole contents is very much the standard on all applications in the Windows world. The thinking is (and is true for a lot of use cases) is that you might want to overwrite that text completely. And instead of doing something like dragging your your cursor over all that text it selects it all first so that type anything and what you type will replace what was there. For instance a user want to completely change the web address much more often then they want to come in and correct only a part of it.
If you click a second time it will deselect and give you an insertion point cursor where you clicked.
Maybe it is a Windows thing then - not sure - never particularly been there.
But on Mac it always seems to be 1 click - character, 2 clicks - word, 3 clicks - line everywhere?
So to have one click - line, two clicks - word, and three clicks - line, and then click pause click as character seems kinda wasteful of that one click?
So if you are in word what does one click do? Surely selects at the character level? Is it different across platforms there?
It seems that when you click once into a google window _within_ a webpage it works like in word. So the behaviour seems different in different parts of the same window?
Bob J.
Do you mean on web pages or the Firefox location bar or the Firefox search bar on the Navigation toolbar?
No it is a consistency thing
I went to the firefox website:
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/search?a=2
I can now see three places to type something:
1. the url field at the top left 2. the search field at top right 3. a new search box in the window
The first two use the rules 1click select all,2 clicks select word, 3 clicks select all The third one (and seemingly everything else in my world) uses 1 click insert cursor, 2 clicks select word, 3 clicks select all
Why not one set of rules from the same company
If I use safari and go to that page all three boxes use the same rule.
If I use Internet explorer all three boxes use the same rule
If I go into word on a Mac it uses the same rule
If I go into word on a PC it uses the same rule
So why is it different in those two places on that window
If I look in any other window on Firefox's site I get the same rule.
Only the top window of Firefox's browser uses this rule?
I must admit I am puzzled and I am sure I have not noticed this before with Firefox?
Bob J.
I too would like to see a choice for this implemented. Something like browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll but instead browser.searchbar.clickSelectsAll.
As a solution to those of you who want normal URL bar functionality:
1) Go to the address about:config
2) Set browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll to FALSE
Modified by ron7684
Wow - thanks Ron - it works brilliantly.
Not clear to this newbe at first what you were saying. But after a little research I typed about:config into the url bar and scrolled down to browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll and double clicked it and the True became False and after a firefox restart the browser now behaves to MY liking
Hey there is a minefield of config stuff down there.
Thanks a heap ron7684