Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

In some applications cannot select & resize images anymore. Used to, & app companies say this was a Firefox feature that is now gone. Really - why?

more options

I use a collaboration site with multiple functions including wikis and database applications. Used to be able to select an image inside of a wiki or a database WYSIWYG field and resize it. Suddenly, a week ago this function stopped working. The provider of the collaboration site says this was a browser function that disappeared from Chrome several months ago, and has now disappeared from Firefox. I am not sure I believe them? If these browsers provided that function, why would Mozilla take it away? I tried using an Addon that sizes images, but it does not work inside of their application. Does seem to work if I just search for images, but inside the collaboration site it does nothing. They say their WYSIWYG editor controls the editing in all the applications on their platform, and I would think this would be a function of the editor, but they say it is not. They say Internet Explorer still has this function. I tried, and it does (so maybe they are telling the truth) but it does not work well. The scaling is very hard to control when you grab the corners of the image and it does not scale proportionally. Does anyone know a solution - or how do we get Mozilla to put this back! It was a really nice feature.

I use a collaboration site with multiple functions including wikis and database applications. Used to be able to select an image inside of a wiki or a database WYSIWYG field and resize it. Suddenly, a week ago this function stopped working. The provider of the collaboration site says this was a browser function that disappeared from Chrome several months ago, and has now disappeared from Firefox. I am not sure I believe them? If these browsers provided that function, why would Mozilla take it away? I tried using an Addon that sizes images, but it does not work inside of their application. Does seem to work if I just search for images, but inside the collaboration site it does nothing. They say their WYSIWYG editor controls the editing in all the applications on their platform, and I would think this would be a function of the editor, but they say it is not. They say Internet Explorer still has this function. I tried, and it does (so maybe they are telling the truth) but it does not work well. The scaling is very hard to control when you grab the corners of the image and it does not scale proportionally. Does anyone know a solution - or how do we get Mozilla to put this back! It was a really nice feature.

Chosen solution

Hi shadowgraphics, I found a note about this change in Firefox 64 indicating it is a non-standard behavior that is supposed to go away, but that sites can enable it using a command:

https://www.fxsitecompat.com/en-CA/docs/2018/firefox-specific-html-editing-ui-has-been-disabled-by-default/

Since the site might not do that for you, you could try reversing the change using a preference. I haven't tested it myself. Do you want to try it and see whether it works for you?

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button promising to be careful or accepting the risk.

(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste by_def and pause while the list is filtered

The three preferences that start with editor. used to be true and starting in Firefox 64, they are false.

(3) Double-click the editor.resizing.enabled_by_default preference to switch the value from false to true

Most likely you would need to reload any open page before that takes effect. Possibly you'll need to restart Firefox.

Does that restore the behavior from Firefox 63? I don't know how long these preferences will be available.

Read this answer in context 👍 1

All Replies (3)

more options

Chosen Solution

Hi shadowgraphics, I found a note about this change in Firefox 64 indicating it is a non-standard behavior that is supposed to go away, but that sites can enable it using a command:

https://www.fxsitecompat.com/en-CA/docs/2018/firefox-specific-html-editing-ui-has-been-disabled-by-default/

Since the site might not do that for you, you could try reversing the change using a preference. I haven't tested it myself. Do you want to try it and see whether it works for you?

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button promising to be careful or accepting the risk.

(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste by_def and pause while the list is filtered

The three preferences that start with editor. used to be true and starting in Firefox 64, they are false.

(3) Double-click the editor.resizing.enabled_by_default preference to switch the value from false to true

Most likely you would need to reload any open page before that takes effect. Possibly you'll need to restart Firefox.

Does that restore the behavior from Firefox 63? I don't know how long these preferences will be available.

more options

This worked to restore the function! Thank you very much. Given this is such a handy feature, I have to wonder why Mozilla would go through the effort to take something that works (which I doubt anyone was complaining about or asking to have taken away) and turn it off? How exactly does that equate to an upgrade:)

Appreciate the answer - now I can only hope that Mozilla will take a hint and not just keep the preference but turn it back on as the default!

more options

I'm glad that worked for you, but please don't expect Firefox to change the default back. As noted in the article, this change was "requested by the W3C Editing Task Force." The W3C sets web standards, and Mozilla usually tries to conform (even more than some other browser makers).