Search a webpage for text hidden behind a frame
Dec.26/2021:
Greetings,
So I would like to elaborate on my original query. When one searches for text on a web-page (ctl-f), all visible occurrences of that text (any case, any wildcard) will be highlited nicely. In the search bar at the bottom, you can click up-chevron, or down-chevron to have the page move-to and present each occurrence of that text nicely.
However, if you click a chevron, and that next occurrence of text is NOT presented (the web-page does not advance to wherever that text exists), then you know that occurrence of text is hidden, perhaps "in a frame" somewhere. Firefox does not highlite which frame. You would essentially need to click on everything that needs a click-to-open/expand, in the entire page, in oder for the Firefox search to then reveal that text.
That *severely* reduces the usefulness of Firefox's search a page for text. We are astonished that this issue has not been raised by anyone else (afaik).
How does one ask Firefox coders to take a look into this? Thanks again. Jason.
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jasonsafely jasonsafely 12/19/20, 12:33 PM
Greetings,
Often when Searching the contents of the current web page for text, some words are hidden or backgrounded, and not visible, as we cycle through the search counter.
How can we reveal those words on the page, that are hidden like ghosts? Thank you. All Replies (1) cor-el cor-el
Top 10 Contributor Moderator
12/19/20, 2:15 PM
Are you sure that these results aren't hidden because of search settings like "Match Case" or "whole Words" ?
If you use Quick Find then these settings are hidden and you need to open the Find bar via Ctrl+F.
If the results are in an iframe and aren't visible (i.e. you need to scroll this frame) then they might not be found.
Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions ("3-bar" menu button or Tools -> Add-ons -> Extensions) or if hardware acceleration or userChrome.css is causing the problem.
switch to the DEFAULT theme: "3-bar" menu button or Tools -> Add-ons -> Themes do NOT click the "Refresh Firefox" button on the Safe Mode start window
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-using-safe-mode https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-extensions-themes-to-fix-problems
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All Replies (1)
Hi Jason, I think it depends on how the page is designed. Some time ago, we discussed an issue searching on Target's website where Firefox would find words in long product names but those names weren't fully visible because of the way overflowing text was styled:
https://support.mozilla.org/questions/1284886
It was difficult to tell where the highlight was.
On the other hand, there are sites that change the visibility of an element in a way that Firefox will ignore it when doing a Find, but if you expand different elements, the number of found results will change. I'm not sure which is less convenient; I guess it depends on your needs.
One somewhat messy option for stripping away unhelpful styling is to use
(menu bar) View > Page Style > No Style
Maybe that will be useful sometimes? Use View > Page Style > Basic Style to return to normal.
As you might imagine, the support forum volunteers don't have much input in the design of Firefox features, and being in the nature of an Emergency Room, suggestions tend to get lost here. Some other options for providing your input are the following:
- Firefox's new Ideas site at https://mozilla.crowdicity.com/ -- note that this site requires a different login (not your Firefox Account)
- Mozilla Discourse: https://discourse.mozilla.org/
If none of the categories seem to fit, try https://discourse.mozilla.org/c/firefox-development - Reddit (monitored by Mozilla): https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/
Bug Tracking System
- I don't know whether this would be considered a defect, but you could file a bug report: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/
- See: Bugzilla Etiquette