Bug 44397 – [Chromium] Focusing the omnibox should clear selection in Web content on Mac

• Component: WebCore Misc.
• Status: RESOLVED INVALID

[Jeremy Moskovich]

Chrome bug: http://crbug.com/44297

[Jeremy Moskovich]

Created attachment 65058 [details]
Clear selection when Omnibox is focused

[Dimitri Glazkov (Google)]

This looks like it needs to live inside SelectionController::clear(), or SelectionController:setSelection(). Why is it Chromium-specific?

[Tony Chang]

It looks like this will clear all selections on the page, but I think you only want to clear selections of input elements (i.e., things that grab focus).  For example, if I select the copyright text on google.com, then select text in the URL bar, the text should still be selected.

My guess is this works in Safari because when you focus the URL bar, it causes the previous selection to be blurred.  Maybe we need to somehow tell the renderer process that we've moved focus?

[Jeremy Moskovich]

Tony: If I try selecting all of the text on the google homepage in Safari and then focusing the Omnibox then the entire selection is cleared, not just the text input box, did you mean something different?

[Tony Chang]

(In reply to comment #4)
> Tony: If I try selecting all of the text on the google homepage in Safari and then focusing the Omnibox then the entire selection is cleared, not just the text input box, did you mean something different?

That's interesting, that's not what I see in other browsers.

IE8, select all then select text in urlbar: page selection not cleared
IE8, select text in search box then select text in urlbar: page selection not cleared

Firefox 3.6 win, select all then select text in urlbar: page selection not cleared
Firefox 3.6 win, select text in search box then select text in urlbar: search box selection cleared

Firefox 3.6 linux: same as firefox 3.6 win.

Safari 5 win: same as IE8

It sounds like the behavior you're seeing in Safari Mac is Mac specific behavior.

[Ojan Vafai]

Comment on attachment 65058 [details]
Clear selection when Omnibox is focused

Our current behavior looks correct to me. Or, at the very least, it's not wrong. Browsers are wildly inconsistent about how they handle blurred text controls. As far as I know there is no compatibility issue here. Our current behavior of showing the blurred (i.e. grey) selection seems fine unless I'm missing something.

[Jeremy Moskovich]

Changing Platform and bug title per Ojan's comment.

[Jeremy Moskovich]

Created attachment 65238 [details]
Clear selection when Omnibox is focused

Changes since last patch:
* Mac only.
* Removed hack to work around lack of selection cache update, will address in a separate patch.

[Ojan Vafai]

Comment on attachment 65238 [details]
Clear selection when Omnibox is focused

As per my comments on the chromium bug.