Location bar bogarts my typing. Any ideas?

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Unix Ronin

Location bar bogarts my typing. Any ideas?

Unread post by Unix Ronin » 2020-08-16, 19:40

I'm currently running Pale Moon 28.12.0, but this issue has been a problem for quite a while.

I have my location bar preferences set to allow the location bar to suggest history, but not bookmarks or search results. (That's what the SEARCH BAR is for.) Sometimes, though, instead of just SUGGESTING a history match, the location bar will seemingly grab some partial match out of history and completely replace everything I have typed so far with the history entry without asking, leaving the new text selected, so that with the very next character I hit, it's all erased and replaced, leaving me typing from the middle of a URL with the location bar frantically trying to match what I'm typing now to history entries.

Has anyone else encountered this problem? If so, does anyone know a solution other than turning history-in-location-bar off?

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adesh
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Re: Location bar bogarts my typing. Any ideas?

Unread post by adesh » 2020-08-17, 06:40

This seems to be a unique problem. Are you sure search results are not getting accidentally selected by, say, your touchpad? Does it happen in safe mode too?

Btw, partial matching of history items is normal and intended behaviour.

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Re: Location bar bogarts my typing. Any ideas?

Unread post by moonbat » 2020-08-17, 08:03

The whole idea is that you need to recall only a part of either the page title or URL for it to serve up matches. Personally it has even made hunting through bookmarks redundant since they also feature in these results. Also there is no distinction between regular and search history in the location bar preferences out of the box, unless you have some extension or other tweak that makes it possible.
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Re: Location bar bogarts my typing. Any ideas?

Unread post by Lucio Chiappetti » 2020-08-17, 10:26

Unix Ronin wrote:
2020-08-16, 19:40
Has anyone else encountered this problem?
Not sure ... yes occasionally what is in the location bar changes to something unexpected, but I believe it is related to finger slipping on the control key or funny behaviour of the touchpad (my fingers are not yet accustomed to the small laptop keyboard and go as if i were still on the office's desktop)
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. (G.B. Shaw)

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Re: Location bar bogarts my typing. Any ideas?

Unread post by Moonchild » 2020-08-18, 10:02

The address bar will not replace what you have typed (at most autocomplete the untyped part), unless you hit (probably by accident) directional controls to select an entry in the drop-down.

Also, if you want to control what is searched in the address bar, you can do this in preferences. We have these things in the UI for a reason :)
Perhaps explore the options of your application before getting upset with assuming we don't have something?

Oh and by the way we do not offer search results from the address bar. Search suggestions are only provided from the search bar. Perhaps you have been using Firefox a bit too much lately which does do that.
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Unix Ronin

Re: Location bar bogarts my typing. Any ideas?

Unread post by Unix Ronin » 2020-09-02, 18:43

I'm aware of that preference setting, yes, and that there is no option in there to show (or not show) search results. Nevertheless there are cases in which it will unequivocally return a search result. For instance, if I just type 'f-secure' in the location bar, I do not get an error, I get a search result for that term in my default search engine. I'd prefer it just return an error.

I am pretty certain I'm not accidentally hitting directional keys. Could any other accidental input produce the same effect? I could hypothesize I was accidentally hitting Ctrl instead of Shift, if it weren't that I don't need to hit the shift key when typing URLs because 99% of them are all lower case.

Unix Ronin

Re: Location bar bogarts my typing. Any ideas?

Unread post by Unix Ronin » 2020-09-02, 18:46

adesh wrote:
2020-08-17, 06:40
This seems to be a unique problem. Are you sure search results are not getting accidentally selected by, say, your touchpad? Does it happen in safe mode too?

Btw, partial matching of history items is normal and intended behaviour.
Good thought about unintended touchpad input, but I don't have a touchpad. I'm not surprised by it offering partial matches to history items. Where the problem comes up is when it takes that partial match and runs with it even though I at least did not KNOWINGLY do anything to select it.

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Re: Location bar bogarts my typing. Any ideas?

Unread post by Moonchild » 2020-09-02, 19:11

So what you're complaining about is not what you seemed to describe (about immediate search results while typing) but rather that you prefer not to search from the address bar when pressing enter.
In that case, go to about:config, and set "keyword.enabled" to "false".
This has been asked several times before on this forum and the answer provided every time. A forum search would have undoubtedly given you this solution already, but here it is.
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New Tobin Paradigm

Re: Location bar bogarts my typing. Any ideas?

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2020-09-02, 20:50

He doesn't want to search tho ;)

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Re: Location bar bogarts my typing. Any ideas?

Unread post by Moonchild » 2020-09-02, 21:48

New Tobin Paradigm wrote:
2020-09-02, 20:50
He doesn't want to search tho ;)
Oh har har, so funny :P
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