duckduckgo.com - Search settings button does not work

[back2themoon]

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bitmap+brothe ... oon&ia=web

This is a quick search settings toggle. Fairly new, I think. When pressed, nothing happens. The settings pop-up does not appear. Couldn't find any errors:

Not working.png

This should appear:

Working.png

[jobbautista9]

Can confirm as well. I thought polyfilling the Intl.ListFormat would work (I used the polyfill by wessberg via unpkg.com and added with Modify HTTP Response, and had to override DDG's CSP to null via the Rewrite HTTP Headers add-on) but even that didn't make the search settings button work again...

I've sent feedback to them via the Share Feedback button. Hopefully they will see it.

[adoxa]

It actually catches the ListFormat error, so what you're seeing there is just a log message, not an actual exception. It uses <a> inside of <button>, so the click isn't being processed. Open about:config, set dom.forms.button.standards_compliant to false and restart.

[jobbautista9]

Ah, that makes sense now. ListFormat was a red herring, I didn't need the polyfill at all. Thanks for analyzing this deeper!

I wonder if it's possible to have the browser warn in the Toolkit Error Console while it's in standards-compliant mode for <button> when it sees an anchor inside of its subtree. That would make debugging this kind of issue easier in the future, and help evangelize the correct standard behavior for buttons to web developers...

EDIT: Here's a Greasemonkey userscript I've cooked up quick which should do the warning fine I think. Hopefully the MutationObserver not being disconnected won't be a problem though (the GC should be able to clear them right?)...

Code: Select all

// ==UserScript==
// @name        Detect non-standard buttons
// @namespace   job.tilde.team
// @include     *
// @version     1.0
// @grant       none
// ==/UserScript==

const config = { attributes: true, childList: true, subtree: true };

var oldLength = 0;
const callback = (mutationList, observer) => {
  var badAnchors = document.querySelectorAll("button * a")
  if (badAnchors.length > oldLength) {
    console.warn("An anchor inside a button is detected. Standard " +
                  "behavior mandates that any elements inside a <button> " +
                  "will be display-only content, and as such any click " +
                  "event will only be sent to the button, not the anchor. " +
                  "This may lead to the button not working as expected. " +
                  "Detected anchors:\n%o", badAnchors);
    oldLength = badAnchors.length;
  }
}

const observer = new MutationObserver(callback);
observer.observe(document.body, config);

Screenshot 2025-11-26 154756.png

[Moonchild]

I'll shoot my contacts at DDG a report about this. Hopefully they will fix this quirk-reliant behaviour, because the spec is explicit about this being wrong behaviour.

Content model:
Phrasing content, but there must be no interactive content descendant and no descendant with the tabindex attribute specified.

[billmcct]

Personally, I use the hamburger menu in upper right corner. (three lines)

[Moonchild]

I wonder if it's possible to have the browser warn in the Toolkit Error Console while it's in standards-compliant mode for <button> when it sees an anchor inside of its subtree. That would make debugging this kind of issue easier in the future, and help evangelize the correct standard behavior for buttons to web developers...

It should be possible but will require digging where exactly to check, and how extensive the check should be, because "interactible" is more than just anchors, and having an anchor inside a button doesn't necessarily imply that the site tries to use it for navigation, etc.

[Goodydino]

Personally, I use the hamburger menu in upper right corner. (three lines)

I used that one and it worked. I got a menu and tried one of the options. It worked fine. Maybe it is a Windows-specific problem?

[back2themoon]

Personally, I use the hamburger menu in upper right corner. (three lines)

I used that one and it worked. I got a menu and tried one of the options. It worked fine. Maybe it is a Windows-specific problem?

It's irrelevant, because no one here is talking about the hamburger menu. Not what the topic is about.