'Emacs style' delete line shortcut (CTRL/U) doesn't work correctly in Firefox

MR ZenWiz mrzenwiz at gmail.com
Wed Oct 10 19:54:49 UTC 2018


On Wed, Oct 10, 2018 at 2:14 AM Chris Green <cl at isbd.net> wrote:
>
> I have the 'Emacs style' keyboard shortcuts enabled on my [x]ubuntu
> 18.04 systems.  The shortcut I use most often is the (not really
> Emacs) CTRL/U for deleting a line of text.
>
> This should delete the whole line of text even if the cursor isn't
> placed at the end of the line.  It *does* do this in other GUIs but in
> Firefox it just deletes from the cursor to the start of the line.
> This makes the shortcut much less useful as it means I need to move
> the cursor to delete the line and this means I have to use the touchpad
> or mouse.  The whole point (for me) of CTRL/U is that I don't need to
> leave the keyboard to enter a new line.
>
> I'm fairly sure this *used* to work in Firefox.  Is it therefore a bug
> I can report? .... or is there a workaround, i.e. a simple, keyboard
> only, 'delete line' shortcut?
>
I realize I'm coming late to this party.

I have never seen ^U used for anything but 'delete from cursor to
beginning of line.'  That's how it works in bash (and every other
UNIX/Linux shell I've ever used), and most line oriented apps (think
vi)

Liam,

I too am a huge keyboard afficionado, and I detest being stuck with
using a mouse (or worse, a touchpad - ick), but i also must say that
I've been less impressed with Windows than Linux re keyboard vs.
mouse.  DOS and 4DOS, sure, but Windows?  (I'd be more impressed if
they hadn't changed the keyboard commands in Office 2010 or one of the
more recent ones where, among other things, <shift>^S no longer means
"save as".)

For the record, I go back to 1980 professionally, with 2+ years of
intense ICS education before that (plus one class of punch cards and
line printers in 1973 - talk about fun!), and I've used vi since I was
first introduced to it in 1986 or 1987.  Back then it was the only
text editor available on all UNIX machines (emacs was still new, and
I've never learned it).  I frequently evangelize the huge advantages
of using the command line over anything in the GUI with rare
exceptions, most of which have to do with actually manipulating
graphics.  Keyboard power forever!

Mark




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