Firefox Ctrl+LeftArrow/RightArrow key combinations doesn't work

English Applications
1

Hey folks,

In FireFox (address bar or search box) i cannot select next or previous word by pressing ctrl+shift+arrow keys,
The cursor either goes to the end or start of the strings.
i.e. i cannot select the following by pressing ctrl+shift+right arrow when i put the cursor at the first of the address bar

http://i65.tinypic.com/1zcpi86.jpg

instead, i get this:

http://i64.tinypic.com/2drcbw4.jpg

i tried to disable all addons and restart firefox in safe mode, but the issue didn’t vanish.

PS1:I don’t have this issue on my Chromium
PS2: I’m using FireFox 44.0

2

Did that function as you think it should, earlier in Firefox?

I ask because I like to know if it is something that changed in Firefox, or something that you experienced in another application (Chromium) and think that it should “thus” function the same way in another application (Firefox).

Background is that you say that that key-combination should go to the next/previous word. IMHO words are seperated by white space. But I understand from your description that you mean going to the next/previous item of an URL. When that is the case, what should be the seperator(s)? Only / or also ? and & and more?

3

Hi hcvv and thanks for your reply.

Actually it works on Mageia and WIndows ( i sync my FireFox and have the same extensions, bookmarks and … on all systems), but i don’t know whether it used to work on OpenSuse or not.

For separators, i think it’s a simple regular expression, which separates words if there are “/, . : ?” or digits between them

Thanks

4

I’ve used Firefox on openSUSE 12.x 13.x and Tumbleweed (all with KDE desktop), as far as I remember the Ctrl+Left|RightArrow has always been space-delimited… whether that’s by design, or is in fact a bug, I don’t know.

You could try asking over on the Mozillazine Forums http://forums.mozillazine.org/index.php

5

I never felt any urge to do such a thing, but I now tried this on openSUSE 131.1 with Firefox 44.0.

First clicked to a random place in the address bar. Then used Ctrl-RightArrow and Ctrl-Leftarrow. The cursor jumped to the right/left, stoping at the right any of . / ? = &. It handles the :// combination as one "separator though.

I do not know if the OP defines this as “does work”, but that is what I see.

6

Interesting… The behaviour you’re seeing (which is what I would expect it to do) is not what I (or the OP?) is seeing.

Taking “https://forums.opensuse.org/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=2755475” as an example. Ctrl-LeftArrow moves to the very beginning, and Ctrl-RightArrow moves to the very end, it doesn’t stop on the “./?=&” characters.

Tested using openSUSE 13.2 / KDE “4” / Firefox 38.0.6 and with Tumbleweed (20160212) / KDE “5” / Firefox 44.0

Desktop environment, or a user setting somewhere ???

7

I used the URL of this thread in my test (which is the same or very similar to what you used).

I do not think I ever changed a setting for this. As said, I never used the feature, thus I never felt the need to change something here from the default.

Maybe another 13.1 user can test and post?

8

But it looks like I/we did :wink: - OK, found the “problem”

It’s a non-UI Firefox setting:

use “about:config” to set the value of “layout.word_select.stop_at_punctuation” to true

9

I can not realy imagine that you and the OP (and others) did realy set that willingly.

10

Maybe carry over from previous OS/Version settings.

The actual history of configuration files are important since they are generally not changed between versions.

11

I would tend to agree… also, I don’t recall setting that particular preference.

Further investigation leads to the extension “FindBar Tweak” which seems to conflict with that setting.

Toggling “layout.word_select.stop_at_punctuation” to true also results in (the FindBar Tweak) preference “extensions.findbartweak.layoutStopAtPunctuation” changing to true.

Also, FindBar Tweak is resetting both it’s own “extensions.findbartweak.layoutStopAtPunctuation” and “layout.word_select.stop_at_punctuation” to false when Firefox is restarted.

I’ve yet to find the setting in FindBar Tweak that controls “extensions.findbartweak.layoutStopAtPunctuation” …

I think this is one to take up with FindBar Tweak’s author.

@lightblue

I wonder if you also use, or have used, FindBar Tweak?

12

That is what I had initially assumed to be the case…

13

Hmm… The latter of these two

http://paste.opensuse.org/view/raw/6dcae072

seemed a likely candidate… :\ But, changing those preferences doesn’t seem to change the behaviour.

14

Hi amigos,

First of all, thanks for your comments and replies, specially HCVV and Tannington,

and then thanks for your resolution Tannington,
That’s great, I couldn’t imaging that it might have such a simple -but important- setting.

I don’t think so, as I think it’s the first time that I hear about that :smiley:

I also just found out that double clicking on a word in the address bar or search bar in Google Chromium selects a single word and stops at punctuation, but in FireFox selects the whole string.
(however, for example in Windows, both FireFox and Chromium behave the same and detects punctuations)

Best,
:):nerd:

15

OK Thanks - I was curious as there seems to be some sort of conflict between that extension and the user preference “layout.word_select.stop_at_punctuation”

… but in FireFox selects the whole string.

Try changing the setting (using about:config) of “browser.urlbar.doubleClickSelectsAll” to False

16

I just did the same as you, Firefox in openSUSE Evergreen (aka 13.1), took the following link for this thread:

https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/513801-Firefox-Ctrl-LeftArrow-RightArrow-key-combinations-doesn-t-work

… and did Ctrl-LftArrow and Ctrl_RtArrow. Cursor jumps as you report to each “-”, “/”, & “.” through the link.

As with you, I am not aware of ever making any changes to achieve this.

EDIT: Gee, I perhaps should have read more of the thread before posting.lol!

17

Whether the cursor skips punctuation or not is controlled by the FF pref “layout.word_select.stop_at_punctuation”, “True” to stop at punctuation, “False” to skip. The default FF setting is “True”. However… Do you not have the package “MozillaFirefox-branding-openSUSE” installed? It’s that which changes the default setting for the preference. It installs the file “all-openSUSE.js” to “/usr/lib64/firefox/defaults/pref”, which contains the line:

// openSUSE overrides for default settings pref("layout.word_select.stop_at_punctuation", false);

EDIT: Gee, I perhaps should have read more of the thread before posting.lol!
I can really relate to that… :slight_smile:

18

Take Two, as I had time-out problems posting earlier… (anyone else had problems with “forums.opensuse.org” today) and “something” ate the CR/LFs…

Whether the cursor skips punctuation or not is controlled by the FF pref “layout.word_select.stop_at_punctuation”, “True” to stop at punctuation, “False” to skip. The default FF setting is “True”.

However…

Do you not have the package “MozillaFirefox-branding-openSUSE” installed? As that changes the default setting for that preference. It installs the file “all-openSUSE.js” to “/usr/lib64/firefox/defaults/pref”, which contains the line:

// openSUSE overrides for default settings
pref("layout.word_select.stop_at_punctuation", false);
19

Thanks tanningto,
You’re awesome,

Ah, So that’s the source of the error,
I didn’t think that such a thing could be the reason.
Hey amigo, Sounds you’re the master of FireFox and know all things about it :wink:

20

Hmmm. Actually, no. And that brings me to something else I was not thinking of at the time. I am running the ESR version of Firefox, and I am using the straight Mozilla version, not from openSUSE. I must keep that in mind when replying to any Firefox problems, because my setup is therefore different from most other Users.:X