Home and End keys in the Search Bar

Erinome

Home and End keys work unexpectedly while working with search suggestions in the Search bar.

This is what happens for Home key:

Type anything into the Search bar with suggestions enabled, do not submit;
Walk down the loaded suggestions list with arrow keys;
Press Home key.

Result:
Current search bar text gets replaced with the text of the first suggestion in the list, and then the cursor is placed at the beginning of the text.

What was supposed to happen:
The cursor should just move to the beginning of the text already present in Search bar.
No text in the Search bar should ever be modified upon pressing Home key.

And this is what happens for End key:

Type anything into the Search bar with suggestions enabled;
Walk down the loaded suggestions list with arrow keys;
Edit something in currently chosen suggestion text;
Press End key.

Result:
Search bar text gets replaced with the unmodified text of the chosen suggestion, and then the cursor is placed at the end of the line. All the changed text is lost.

Moreover:

Type term1 into the Search bar with suggestions enabled;
Walk down the loaded suggestions list with arrow keys;
Press End key (this will do nothing);
Delete term1 and type term2.
Press End key again.

Result:
Search bar text gets replaced with the text of chosen suggestion from term1, and then the cursor is placed at the end of the line.

What was supposed to happen:
The cursor should just move to the end of the text already present in Search bar.
No text in the Search bar should ever be modified upon pressing End key.

Note, that search suggestions in the Address bar always work as expected - this is broken only in the Search bar.
The issue first appeared in June 2020 and is present in all the versions including the latest 3.6.2165.3 snapshot.

Erinome

It's been a YEAR since this bug first appeared. Since then I've sent two bug reports and never received a even single word from support team back - only the initial robot-generated confirmation that the report was received. I'm not even sure somebody ever looked into it!

Though I have a possible explanation: I've already asked several times about this issue in comments section. And you know how it usually goes? One sees a complaint about search suggestions, tries to reproduce 'em in an address bar and concludes that it works fine. Yeah. It works fine in the ADDRESS bar. But not in the SEARCH bar. I won't be surprised that exactly that happened to my both bug reports: they could try to reproduce them in an address bar and as a result marked the reports as invalid.

But okay, maybe the bug reports weren't actually closed (we can't know that - oh, that's really convenient not to send a single message to the reporter). Then you could say: hey, but it's a low priority issue! Yeah, I know what low priority means. But a whole year has passed. So, does the low priority mean simply never here? On the contrary, a lot of new features were introduced and released through this year. Even such highest priority ones as adding the clock at the right bottom corner of the browser window. You know, that clock right above the system clock in the system tray - so we can use it at any moment to check that they show exactly same time. That probably was a high priority example I'll never use on a desktop. Though I face my low priority issue every single day when I use the search bar and want to edit some search terms.

Guess what's more important for a browser - an additional clock or a properly working search bar?

WildEnte

@erinome your frustration is somewhat understandable, I also habe some long standing issues that are not fixed quickly.

You can inquire the status of your bug in this thread and at least find out if it could be reproduced internally https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/27450/what-is-the-status-of-vb-already-reported-bug-issue

Regarding priority, this is something very personal, and while the bug you mention may significantly affect your workflow it that may not be the case for most users. Vivaldi has a very small team and contrary to the other browsers a very limited Flux of income which is mainly governed by pulling in users by adding features that are useful for some more folks here and there. They have to prioritize heavily. I would argue that more folks are using the timer than there are users that are annoyed by the bug you mention. This, by the way, also happens with Software you pay for, just check the forum of any other software company out there.

While none of this will make you any happier, maybe it will reduce the anger level a little.

Erinome

@wildente said in Home and End keys in the Search Bar:

You can inquire the status of your bug in this thread and at least find out if it could be reproduced internally

Actually I've found out some time ago that the first bug report was just silently rejected, and I assume same happened to the second one too, cause, well, you know. If the bug report wasn't closed, I'd have a hope it will be worked on at some point and will wait patiently. But currently it seems it even isn't considered as a bug - and that is the reason for frustration.

Regarding reproducibility, someone took time (thanks!) to successfully check and reproduce the issue, so it definitely isn't only me who can see it.

Anyway I won't bother anyone here frequently, and will write again in this topic the next year.

underscoreglook

I can confirm this is still happening. It is driving me insane, because I basically can't edit any search term, I have to delete everything and retype everything.

OS: Windows 10.
Vivaldi version 4.0.2312.27 (Stable channel) (64-bit).

Video of the bug: https://youtu.be/FJUHgakG31c

Repro steps:

Click on search bar
Type stuff in, autocomplete list should show up
Press "Home"

What should happen:
The contents of the search bar should not change.

What actually happens:
The contents of the search bar change to the first item of the autocomplete list.

Pesala

@erinome Probably closed because it works as designed. Home goes to the first in the list of suggestions. Cursor up/down go to the previous/next suggestion.

If you have the bug number, ask in the Bug Status thread .

Erinome

@pesala said in Home and End keys in the Search Bar:

it works as designed. Home goes to the first in the list of suggestions.

Oh really? And it became designed this way in the mid of 2020, cause it worked differently for years before?

Then I really want to ask, why it doesn't work the same way in the address bar? In address bar you CAN open the list of previously typed history, use cursor up/down to navigate the list, and home/end by some reason DOES NOT jump to the beginning/end of the list overwriting everything you've typed - instead it just moves the cursor on the current line. As it was expected. And the same is expected for search bar. But the search bar works differently by some unknown reason.

So, maybe vivaldi should be more consistent and have home/end jump the list and overwrite user input in the address bar too, just like in the search bar? But I suppose this will never happen cause it will make way more people angry.

@pesala said in Home and End keys in the Search Bar:

Probably closed

"Probably". Exactly this makes the bugreport system really flawed. I'm not even waiting for somebody to write a meaningful comments when the bugreport was closed - why the heck a user can't get a simple autogenerated reply about his report was rejected? Why we need to guess and ask other people to waste their time checking bug statuses? Actually the logic of this whole system looks like a nonsense.

@underscoreglook said in Home and End keys in the Search Bar:

It is driving me insane, because I basically can't edit any search term, I have to delete everything and retype everything.

Completely agree. Actually if we want to edit something in a beginning of a suggestion, we have to either use left/right arrows to sloooooowly move the cursor, or use SHIFT+home/end and then press arrow once - 3 keys instead of 1. Not saying about we need to actually REMEMBER to do that, cause search bar in vivaldi is the only place where home/end works unexpectedly - in all other apps (and even other inputs in vivaldi!) you can use just home/end without a second thought, but when you do it here - you're almost always like "OH HELL IT JUMPED AGAIN!!"

Erinome

Well, another half a year has passed and the issue of losing the text typed into Search bar after pressing 'Home' key is still present in both stable and snapshots of vivaldi and looks like it will never get fixed cause nobody cares.

But at least I'm glad vivaldi has limited js customization that is enough to produce the workaround - Vivaldi Search Bar Fix.

By "limited" I mean it actually has no control and can't stop or modify the behavior of the code that generates search suggestions which actually crumble Search bar content, but it can try to restore crumbled content back. And keep it in place. In most cases. So it's definitely better than nothing. But still it's just a workaround, not a proper solution, which seems can't be created by available means.

mib2berlin

@Erinome
Hi, nobody ever post a bug number in this thread.
I make several bug reports, I got a confirmation mail.
A bug could be confirmed, cant reproduce or by design.
Confirmed does not meant a developer work on it, there are ten thousands of reports.
If you have a bug number ask in the status thread, or open a new report.

Cheers, mib

Erinome

Since 2020 when this issue was first introduced I have already submitted bug reports several times. And every time all I got was only an automatic reply saying that the report was received and the team at some point will look at it, and then - nothing.

As far as I recall, at forums or snapshot comments section once I was told that somebody checked one of those VBs sent months ago and that was just... "closed". End of the story. And that's the best and only reply I got on those over last 2+ years. I can only guess the same happened to my other reports on this case too. I repeat, I have NEVER received no replies to my email on any of them - nor confirmed, nor can't reproduce, nor nothing.

Should I send another report after that? I doubt so.

mib2berlin

@Erinome
I understand your frustration but what else you can do.
The developer has to give a reason when a bug is closed or you had double bad luck.

Nobody cares about your report
Report was closed without any reason (and this several times)

I would create a new report and after a few weeks ask in the bug status thread about.

https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/27450/what-is-the-status-of-vb-already-reported-bug-issue/

Cheers, mib

Pesala

Page Up and Page Down work for me.

Left cursor, then Ctrl Home also work.

It is not easy to resolve. Cursor keys also have the function of switching search engines.

Instead of dreaming about this feature working just as you would like, find a different workflow that solves the issue.

Smart programmers might be able to find a solution that works for all three functions, but don't bank on it.

Home/End of search string entry field
Top/Bottom of suggestions drop list
Top/Bottom of Search Engines drop list

Pesala

I noticed that some settings are duplicated.

Settings, Privacy, Suggestions in Search Field
Settings, Search, Allow Search Suggestions, In Search Field

No harm in that, I suppose. They are linked.

Erinome

@Pesala said in Home and End keys in the Search Bar:

Page Up and Page Down work for me.
Left cursor, then Ctrl Home also work.

I'm not quite sure what are you talking about. Nobody did say a word about PgUp/PgDn or search engine switching. Also Ctrl+Home or Shift+Home combinations do move cursor without messing with suggestions list even without any cursor keys, but it is really counter-intuitive when you are just typing text and doing it fast. Otherwise it's even possible to suggest using mouse to put cursor at the desired positions, but we are here to talk about convenience, not possibilities.

And again, I remind you that right now we have this:

Home key always replaces user input with top search suggestion, and then moves cursor position to the end of the line wherever it was before.
End key moves cursor position to the end of the line if you didn't traverse search suggestions list; but if you did and also have edited or typed something into the input field, then this will replace your text with with the unmodified text of current suggestion line, and I insist - the current line, not the bottom one.

Does anyone see any logic in this? I don't. I guess there could be two possibilities:

a.) Home/End keys could remove user input and put top/buttom search suggestion from dropdown list there. I don't know who might want this, but that would make a bit sense at least.
b.) Home/End keys could move cursor to the beginning/ending of a line keeping everything user has typed. I believe this is most logical for any input form, and it's quite hard to disagree.

But Search Bar currently does neither of these.

@mib2berlin said in Home and End keys in the Search Bar:

I understand your frustration but what else you can do.

What else? Well, actually I made the js mod that keeps what I typed safe upon pressing Home/End keys. Also it keeps safe my nerves too.

I posted it here to share it with others who might be interested in using Search bar frequently while continuing to be sane.

Pesala

@Erinome When you are scrolling down the list of suggestions, the list has focus. So why should Home go to the beginning of the line in the search string entry field?

Home goes to the first entry in the list, which is what you just typed - it is not a suggestion. Pressing home again goes to the start of the typed entry. End then goes to the end of the typed entry, and left/right cursor scroll through it.

I don't disagree that the behaviour is odd, but for all the bug reports and discussion, there is no progress.

I am a pragmatist. If I used this feature, I would just use what works, which is Page Up and Page Down.

The right procedure is to ask in the Bug Status thread, giving the Bug number for your latest report, for which you have had no reply apart from the initial automatic acknowledgement.

I have also had reproducible bugs closed. Often this happens if the report is poorly laid out. It should be clear, concise, but include all the necessary steps.

Erinome

@Pesala said in Home and End keys in the Search Bar:

When you are scrolling down the list of suggestions, the list has focus. So why should Home go to the beginning of the line in the search string entry field?

Unfortunately Home replaces user input with first suggestion even when user isn't and wasn't scrolling down the list - just was typing his search term. That's why it should go to the beginning of the line in the search string entry field.

@Pesala said in Home and End keys in the Search Bar:

Home goes to the first entry in the list, which is what you just typed - it is not a suggestion.

Nope, Home always goes to the first entry in the list, which is not what user just typed. What user just typed is removed. First entry in the list is the first suggestion, not user-typed text. That is the issue.

@Pesala said in Home and End keys in the Search Bar:

I am a pragmatist. If I used this feature, I would just use what works, which is Page Up and Page Down.

Again, I don't see how Page Up and Page Down could be even related to this whole thing. It can't help with moving cursor inside the input field, what we're trying to achieve.

And by the way Page Up and Page Down are also broken. See:

Type something into search bar. Press PgUp and what you've typed is replaced with the last search suggestion.
Retype something new into search bar. Now press PgDn and what you've typed is replaced with the first search suggestion.

No, it's not a typo: initially PgUp goes to the last and PgDn goes to the first. Why so? No ideas. Only after that you may use PgUp/PgDn again and get intended results: PgUp will bring the first available suggestion and PgDn will bring the last and not vice versa. But at that point what you've typed is already gone! And that is what we are talking about.

Yrthos

I found this thread searching for a solution to this same problem, but I don't use Vivaldi. For me, it happens in Firefox. Like you, pressing the Home key changes my search term to the 1st result in the suggestion list. Unlike you, the End key changes my search term to the last suggestion in the list, whether any result is highlighted or not. My cursor always lands at the end of the line. I agree with you that, "No text in the Search bar should ever be modified upon pressing Home or End keys."
At first, I thought my keyboard was broken. But my Home & End keys work perfectly in Microsoft Word and every other program I've tested.
Since you have the problem in Vivaldi, and I have it in Firefox, could it be a Windows issue, or maybe a Search Engine problem? I use Duck Duck Go, but it does not happen in Google, Bing or Yahoo.

SpiderDave

I'm having the same results as Yrthos, but it also seems to do an "undo" on what I've typed when i press home. It doesn't happen in Google for me because Google doesn't autocomplete. Turning off autocomplete to avoid the behavior but it's a shame it's broken.

Norst

@Erinome Seems like fixed in Vivaldi 6.8, finally.