Clicking in the URL or Search field automatically selects existing text (how to disable this behaviour?)
Hi everyone,
a long time ago, Firefox on GNU/Linux didn't have this default behaviour I've described in the title of my question (but FF on Windows had this behaviour at the time, so I believe it was decided to unify the behaviour on all platforms).
The thing is: I truly dislike having the existing text selected automatically. When I click a precise location in the URL or Search field (where some text already exists), I expect the text cursor to locate at this exact spot, NOT the existing text to be entirely selected! With this "new" default behaviour, it now requires 2 clicks to achieve the same task (not what I'd call an improvement) and makes it really PAINFUL to construct a list of search terms (one by one) by copying/pasting them from the current web page (funnily, it proves to be less painful when copying text from another application, since the automatic selection of previously pasted search terms does NOT happen when pasting an additional term -> this is exactly the behaviour I'm expecting).
Historically, whenever I was willing to have the existing text SELECTED (I agree this can be useful from time to time), I used keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+L or Ctrl+K to move the text cursor to the URL or Search field (respectively).
All in all, the historical behaviour of FF on GNU/Linux was just fine (at least to me).
So my QUESTION today is: how to get this historical behaviour back? How to prevent the existing text from being selected when I just CLICK in the URL or Search field?
I've not been able to find a hidden option to configure this behaviour since FF on Linux changed the rule. So I'm afraid it doesn't exist... But if so, would it be possible to add such an option?
Thank you :)
All Replies (2)
In Firefox 75 and newer on Linux, the behavior when clicking on the Address Bar and the Search Bar now matches other desktop platforms: a single click selects all without primary selection, a double click selects a word, and a triple click selects all with primary selection.
Unfortunately it isn't possible to revert to the previous state used on Linux where clicking once didn't visually select the URL. The clickSelectsAll and doubleClickSelectsAll pref are no longer supported in Firefox 75 and newer and you will have to get used to the new behavior. The click behavior in the location bar is now the same on all platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux).
You will have to click a second time if you want the cursor to appear at a specific position. Make sure that you yo not click too fast (do not double-click) as that selects a word.
cor-el a écrit
Unfortunately it isn't possible to revert to the previous state used on Linux where clicking once didn't visually select the URL. The clickSelectsAll and doubleClickSelectsAll pref are no longer supported in Firefox 75 and newer and you will have to get used to the new behavior.
Thanks for your answer cor-el! Unfortunately, it confirms what I was fearing: there is no plan to re-enable the historical Linux behaviour for users who preferred it :( (being a Linux user at home and a Windows user at work, my preference went to the Linux behaviour at the time) Of course, over the time, I got used to the new behaviour, common to all platforms. But it remains inconvenient when copying/pasting two or more words from the web page to the Search field... I'm now forced to use the 'End' key to add an additional search term, which was previously not needed. It also remains inconvenient when user's intention is to place the text cursor somewhere in the URL (not willing to select the URL). As you said, clicking a second time makes the trick. But that's an additional click I would prefer to avoid (click-click-click sounds so "Windows"!). Anyway, I can live with the current behaviour (what else could I do? ^^). Thanks again for your time.