Behaviour of ctrl key sequences in firefox-1.0PR

[jimmie james]

> I've lately portupgraded to firefox-1.0PR and I have found a couple
> of what for me are serious usability issues. I cannot say if these
> are linked, but the behaviour seems to indicate it. First, I can
> no longer use ctrl-u, ctrl-a, ctrl-e, ctrl-k and so on in the URL
> field, or any other text input field. Additionally, any movement
> input using neither arrow keys nor the usual emacs ctrl key sequences
> is possible in text input fields.

I hated that too, but on the firefox forums, 
http://forums.mozillazine.org/index.php?c=4
I came across this gem of a "tip"
/usr/X11R6/lib/firefox/lib/firefox-0.10.1/res/builtin/platformHTMLBindings.xml
add to text input section <handler event="keypress" key="u"
modifiers="control" command="cmd_deleteToBeginningOfLine
"/>

With that, ^u in a text box, erases text, on a page, views source. 
Adding other entries and keystrokes will get all your old bindings
back.  There's a thead (sorry, don't have the URL handy) that lists
the valid "cmd_*" settings.

>=20
> Although the latter issue seems more serious on the surface, I'm
> sure it is just a bug and will be easily fixed - it is the loss of
> key bindings for ctrl that is causing me real angst. This causes
> me real problems with pasting from other applications (I'm on FreeBSD
> 5.3BETA7), as I would usually select some text in the shell, click
> into the URL field, ctrl-u, middleclick paste and so on. Needless
> to say, ctrl-u now produces something entirely unwanted, and
> attempting to paste with ctrl-v leaves me with the problem of
> removing the old text and highlighting replaces what is in the mouse
> buffer! Basically, my only option is to backspace over the entire
> line - not fun...
>=20
> What I'm a little concerned about philosophically, going forward,
> is whether this adoption of Microsoft key bindings will continue
> as this appears to be at odds with the mouse select/paste model in
> X - something I'm very fond of, and one of my primary reasons for
> preferring to work in X rather than with MS windows. At present, I
> am using Mozilla 1.7 as a workaround as I found it impossible to
> work happily without the simple ability to kill text from and move
> within an input field.

Hope this helps.