[4.Xp]8/24/99 12:00 Build You cannot highlight the text in the middle of a link.

I'm not sure if I understand the bug report correct; e.g. you can't select part of the text of a link in 5.x, but you could in 4.x? If so, I'm resolving this as WONTFIX for mjudge --- neither IE or Navigator support this functionality, and implementing it in a fashion that wouldn't confuse users is, in my opinion, non-trivial. If you mean to submit an enhancement request_ for this, or if you meant to submit it as something different, please re-open it with your comments.

I meant to say that in Mozilla, you can't highlight a link by clicking on the link, holding down and dragging. This was in Netscape Communicator.

Really? What version? I'm not able to make that happen in 4.7 for Mac OS or Windows. If you hold on a link and drag, it should (on 4.7) invoke a drag-and-drop behavior, rather than a selection.

Mike, This is probably a duplicate of "Drag & Drop not yet implemented", but I thought I'd pass it along for you. Specifically, the issue raised is the Windows-specific behavior in which a user holds down the mouse button for 1-2 seconds on a link --- and when the link is highlighted as draggable, it can be copied onto the clipboard.

this isn't my department. the client (in this case, gecko) needs to determine what to do with the DragGesture event it gets. i only implement _mechanism_, not _policy_. bumping back to you.

I can reproduce this selection behavior on Windows NT 4.6. Click the left mouse button down on a URL and drag a few pixels to the left or right on the URL . The whole URL text will become selected. This would be nice to have in Mozilla too.

I think this can wait until after beta 1; set to M14; change component back to Selection. Michael--should the summary be changed to say "Can't highlight text of a link" rather than "Can't highlight text within a link"?

[I'm not Mike, but yes. ;-]

I agree that is a better name.

setting to M15 (post beta bucket), setting status to assigned

The way to allow selection of link text is with the Shift key. If Shift is held down, clicking, dragging etc should behave exactly as they would if the link was not there. This behavior has the following advantages: * 4xp on MacOS (though not on Windows); * consistent with the only other software I know of which has an analagous feature (selecting buttons in the MacOS Finder's View as Buttons mode); * more flexible than the Windows 4.x behavior of only allowing the text of a whole link to be selected. Gotchas to be aware of when implementing this: * If a selection already exists when the link is Shift+clicked, extend the selection -- just as you would if the link wasn't there. * When the mouse pointer is over a link, toggle between a pointy hand pointer and an I-beam pointer depending on whether Shift is down, so as to give the correct indication of what a click would do at that moment. Changing summary back.

Sounds good to me. Three more gotchas: -Like all other key combinations, the help file should list them all. On some combinations, they can be placed in the Edit menu but shift drag can't. -The highlight link can by dragging can be placed in menu bar i.e. Highlight Link Click+Drag -CTRL+C or copy should copy the text after you have dragged on a link to highlight all text

hmm m16ing this one. I am not sure if this is a selection issue since the problem lays in the fact that the frame is never told about the mouse down when over a link. I will probably bounce this one to the style guys. I will make sure i have some person acknowlege this before I just send it off though dont worry

In linux with 4.x you can select text in links with midlemousebutton, this also doesn't work on mozilla.

moving out to M17

per beppe

setting to nsbeta3+

adding brackets to status whiteboard

fixed.

*SPAM*: Changing the QA contact of all open/resolved Selection bugs from elig@netscape.com to BlakeR1234@aol.com. After the many great years of service Eli has given to Mozilla, it's time for him to move on; he has accepted a position at Eazel. We'll be sad to see him go, and I'll do my best to fill his spot...

The text of links does select upon dragging for me, but could the reporter please verify that this wis what was originally reported? I'm a bit confused by Matthew's comments re: how to select text within links when modifiers are pressed, and how Brian seemed to agree with what Matt was saying (which was nothing about selecting the contents of links upon dragging, as far as I could tell).

Reopening. In build 2000082608 on Mac OS 9.0, if you drag a link to nowhere, the whole text of the link is selected. I think that's a bug: if you select some text and then aim at a JavaScript link which uses document.getSelection(), but accidentally hit another link instead, you should be able to drag the other link a short distance in order to avoid following it, without disturbing your original selection. And the original bug has not been fixed: you can't highlight arbitrary text in the middle of a link. When you hold down Shift over a link, the cursor does not change to an I-beam; and Shift+dragging from within link text drags the link, instead of making a selection.

If you click on a link, hold and drag, it should highlight the link. It should still start the drag drop if needed, but afterwards, the text in the link should be highlighted so someone can copy the text. I like the shift idea for highlighting only some of the text within a link, but there has to be a way of letting people know about this feature.

Matthew, I couldn't fully understand what you said, but it sounded like a separate bug. The original bug here was to have the text of a link select upon dragging, *not* the ability to select text within a link using modifier keys (despite the misleading original summary -- read the reporter's latest comment). So that should be a separate bug also. Tentatively marking fixed again.

> The original bug here was to have the text of a link select upon dragging In that case, I think it should have been wontfix, for the reason I gave in my last comment. Since you insist, filed separate bug 50673, `Can't start a selection inside a link'.

I tried this out on build 2000110120 on WinNT4, but neither changes the pointer to an I-beam over a link when pressing shift, nor can I select some text within the link. Can someone with more privileges than I have please reopen this bug? Thanks.

Stephan, what you're asking for is bug 50673.