Keyboard shortcuts Spatial navigation of links: When returning to previous page does not hold position

bdkdavid

thank you, Pesala

I take it I have to file it as a bug now

Pesala

@bdkdavid said:

When navigating to that page. then pressing the z key to return does not hold position!

I could not reproduce this, but I did not try very hard. If you can, then do report that as a bug.

xuanma

I can reproduce it.

My case is this: I have a page with quite a bunch of links, each of which open a new page in a new tab. It would be rather useful for me to keep the position where I last was at that list of links, so I go for spatial navigation, open the selected link in a new tab, have a look, close that tab and continue with the links listing.

Sadly, upon returning to that listing, the latest location of spatial navigation is not held (neither the marker nor the actual memory of the location), so I have to start from the top again.

The way how I open the link (Enter/Ctrl+Enter/Shift+Enter...) is irrelevant. In fact, even if I don't open any link, but I switch tabs, and switch back again, the location is gone.

xuanma

A detail I have just realized: to reproduce it one has to navigate away from the tab where spatial navigation was used but to another tab in the same window. Switching windows doesn't expose this behavior.

MindStateTrain

I was able to reproduce this, no matter which shortcut or method to open the link and then return to the page with the spatial orange outline missing. The page would be in the correct scroll position. I don't know if the absence of the orange outline is intendional but if it remained on the link after you come back to it that'd be cool.

Pathduck

@Gwen-Dragon It's not just a missing outline, the problem as stated by the OP is that Spatial Navigation does not remember its focus point when moving back in history. Spatnav starts from the top of the page every time.

Example:
https://ftp.sunet.se/
Go to for instance 'conspiracy' using spatnav.
Go back using Z.
Press Shift+DownArrow.
Focus is on the first link, not 'debian-backports' as might be expected.

Whether it's a bug or just a lacking feature I can't tell.

Pathduck

@Gwen-Dragon OK, why not, something might happen after all these years

Reported as VB-70687.

xuanma

@Pathduck said in Keyboard shortcuts Spatial navigation of links: When returning to previous page does not hold position:

@Gwen-Dragon It's not just a missing outline, the problem as stated by the OP is that Spatial Navigation does not remember its focus point when moving back in history.

Please, remember that it also happens just by switching to another tab and back, without changing the current content of the "affected" tab, by navigating in any way, be it forward through a link, or backwards in history, or anything at all.
Just leave a link "selected" (with spatial navigation), with the outline; switch to another tab in the same window; switch tab back to the previous one, and the outline and the navigation point are gone.

Pathduck

@xuanma Please report this as well as a bug, as it's a bit different from what I already reported.
The more the merrier I say!

bdkdavid

any plans to fix the bug

Ayespy

@bdkdavid There are several thousand bugs. There are plans to fix all of them.

xuanma

@Gwen-Dragon Sorry for the awful delay. I have reported the bug: VB-72448.