Bug: Accessibility degradation due to Bug 1621570
Status: RESOLVED
Priority: --
Resolution: DUPLICATE
Created: 2020-07-17 21:35:44+00:00
Resolved: 2020-07-26 20:37:43+00:00

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:78.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/78.0

Steps to reproduce:

It is very disappointing that Mozilla has chosen to ignore its users by closing comments on that bug, especially as the official responses contain some misinformation and hubris.


"This is expected, to put text in the primary selection you can triple click, to put the cursor at a certain point just click twice, like on any other OS or common browser."

I'm not sure what this is trying to say, but for me, triple click selects all again, clicking twice selects the token nearest to the cursor, so clearly not like on any other OS.  What is this vague reference to a "common browser"?  Do you mean Chrome?


"It was a special behavior only implemented for Linux"

This is blatantly incorrect.  Prior to 75, `browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll: False` was working for me on Windows.  In fact, I was using Firefox on Windows when I discovered that this behavior had been removed.  As many of the other commenters have said, as a technical user, I am routinely editing the URL.  Having to fight with the selection each time is really disruptive.


"The prefs were causing broken edge cases complicate to handle, taking into account all the possible pref combinations"

I can understand this, but at least provide an unsupported workaround.  Can this behavior even be changed with a plugin, or do you plan to reallow the feature after the "evolv[ing] things"?


"While the final words have not yet been spoken, I'm now restricting comments on this bug because I think most had the possibility to express feedback, concerns and workarounds."

I looked over the comments many times and saw no real workarounds.  Are there any?  I would even be willing to learn and write my own plugin if I have to.  Are there no keyboard shortcuts?


"This is totally unrelated, we made that change for accessibility reasons, and it's not related to this change."

I am trying to not respond in anger, but I find this comment somewhat ironic and exceedingly tone-deaf.  I am high functioning autistic, so sundry stimuli provoke extreme discomfort for me.  I used to have to disassemble my phones and physically remove the vibrator, for example, because android for a long time didn't allow for a global disable of vibrations.

I (and thousands like me) have been living with this urlbar issue for months, trying unsuccessfully to adapt, but each time (100+ times/day) irritated at how it slows me down in my job and interrupts my focus.  I find myself hesitating now, contrary to your claims, clicking into any other text box or text field, trying to remember where click selects all and where it doesn't.

In general, Google's UI choices seem to have been calibrated to exact maximum irritation for my autistic sensibilities.  Yet, as I implied earlier, and to their great credit, the Android team added two configs in their accessibility settings to disable animations and vibrations across the whole OS, and every app that lives on it.  Why can't Mozilla support one different functional mode for the URLbar?  Does it really require so many testing resources?  In so many areas of my life I expend great effort to conform and appear intellectually normal, but at least let me be myself on my own computer.