Bug 43445

Summary:	BUGZILLAASSISTANT BSA: Drop-down lists disappear when you are moving your mouse to them
Product:	LibreOffice	Reporter:	Ed <edmund_eyles>
Component:	WWW	Assignee:	Not Assigned <libreoffice-bugs>
Status:	RESOLVED WORKSFORME	QA Contact:
Severity:	normal
Priority:	medium
Version:	unspecified
Hardware:	Other
OS:	All
Whiteboard:	BSA
i915 platform:		i915 features:

Description Ed 2011-12-01 17:52:21 UTC

The LibreOffice version of the bug reporting page (at https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/bug/) has 3 drop-down lists: for component, sub-component and version. Each of these has the same annoying behaviour:
- you move your mouse pointer to the green area at the right-hand end of the list's pseudo-text box
- the drop-down list appears on the screen as soon as you hover over this green area
- you move your mouse diagonally down and left so as to enter the drop-down list
- the drop-down list disappears as soon as your mouse pointer leaves the green area, before it has entered the drop-down list.

The only way you can get the list to remain on the screen is to move your mouse sideways left from the green area, then down into the list - an unintuitive dog-leg.

I would suggest one of two solutions:
1. Resize the pseudo-text box and/or the drop-down list so that they are the same width, the green area being included in the width of the pseudo-text box.
2. Even better, do away with the drop-down-on-hover behaviour completely, and require a mouse click to bring down the list, as we are used to doing. Justifications:
(a) Drop-down lists do not generally behave like this in other applications, nor even in other browser pages. It is therefore unusual and unexpected behaviour. Just because it is possible to code something new, that doesn't make it sexy and good.
(b) Drop-down-on-hover has unwanted side effects, such as when you are moving the mouse pointer across the screen, not wanting to bring down the list, but you happen to hover over it; or even worse, when you are scrolling the page using the keyboard, and the drop-down trigger area happens to fall underneath the mouse pointer.

Browser: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:8.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/8.0.1

Comment 1 Marc Pare 2012-08-10 08:28:03 UTC

(In reply to comment #0)
> The LibreOffice version of the bug reporting page (at
> https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/bug/) has 3 drop-down lists: for
> component, sub-component and version.  Each of these has the same annoying
> behaviour:
> - you move your mouse pointer to the green area at the right-hand end of the
> list's pseudo-text box
> - the drop-down list appears on the screen as soon as you hover over this green
> area
> - you move your mouse diagonally down and left so as to enter the drop-down
> list
> - the drop-down list disappears as soon as your mouse pointer leaves the green
> area, before it has entered the drop-down list.  
> 
> The only way you can get the list to remain on the screen is to move your mouse
> sideways left from the green area, then down into the list - an unintuitive
> dog-leg.  

Yes, I can confirm the behaviour as being the same on my system (FF-ESR 10.0.6; MageiaLinux2). 

> I would suggest one of two solutions:
> 1.  Resize the pseudo-text box and/or the drop-down list so that they are the
> same width, the green area being included in the width of the pseudo-text box.
> 2.  Even better, do away with the drop-down-on-hover behaviour completely, and
> require a mouse click to bring down the list, as we are used to doing. 

Yes, I would also prefer to require a mouse click to bring down the list, just to avoid any confusion when moving the mouse from one side of the screen to the other. Especially when the user is submitting a bug and this could lead to an unintentional pick.

> Justifications:
> (a) Drop-down lists do not generally behave like this in other applications,
> nor even in other browser pages.  It is therefore unusual and unexpected
> behaviour.  Just because it is possible to code something new, that doesn't
> make it sexy and good.  
> (b) Drop-down-on-hover has unwanted side effects, such as when you are moving
> the mouse pointer across the screen, not wanting to bring down the list, but
> you happen to hover over it; or even worse, when you are scrolling the page
> using the keyboard, and the drop-down trigger area happens to fall underneath
> the mouse pointer.  
> 
> Browser: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:8.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/8.0.1

Marc

Comment 2 foss 2014-12-10 11:57:33 UTC

WORKSFORME

Bugzillaassistant just tested with Firefox 36.0a2 (2014-12-09) OSX 10.10.1.

https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/bug/

Dropdowns work fine for me.

Please re-open if this persists for you.

Use of freedesktop.org services, including Bugzilla, is subject to our Code of Conduct. How we collect and use information is described in our Privacy Policy.