Opening new tab changes cursor position in Google

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jonst52
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Joined: August 2nd, 2006, 1:23 pm

Opening new tab changes cursor position in Google

Post by jonst52 »

My usual workflow when googling some terms is to keep one tab opened with the search results and to command-click a link in order to open a page in a new tab in the foreground. After reading the page, I close its tab and return to the previously opened tab (the one that has the Google results), where I choose another link, command-click it and so on.

Ideally, the cursor position in the Google page shouldn't be affected when another tab was created, but strangely this is exactly what is happening lately. For instance, if I'm way down in a Google page and command-click its 35th link, Camino correctly opens a new tab with the linked site. However, when I close this new tab, the Google page is not where it was before creating the new tab; it's at the top of the search results.

By the way, it also happens when Command-Shift-Clicking (which opens links in the background). At first I suspected that it was a keyboard shortcut anomaly, but the change of position also occurs when using the contextual menu.

I tested with a newly-created user account on my Mac, and could reproduce this behavior.

As far as I know, this only occurs at Google. Other websites work as expected.

Anyone else having this issue?
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cflawson
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Re: Opening new tab changes cursor position in Google

Post by cflawson »

Google might be trapping any keystrokes when the page has focus and putting the cursor in the search field, although that wouldn't explain the contextual menu also triggering the behaviour.

If you turn off JavaScript and reload Google, does the problem still happen?

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jonst52
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Joined: August 2nd, 2006, 1:23 pm

Re: Opening new tab changes cursor position in Google

Post by jonst52 »

You've got it right, cflawson: turning off Javascript fixes that (but requires a Camino restart; similarly, turning Javascript back on brings back the wrong behavior, but only after restarting Camino).

And one more thing: Camino shows the top of the Google page but pressing TAB changes the focus to the search term immediately below the one I clicked before. For example, if I Command-Click or Command-Shift-Click the 35th link, Camino displays the top of the Google page; after hitting TAB, the focus goes to the 36th link.

Now I only need to know how to make Google stop doing this. I was expecting something like Gmail's on/off checkboxes for shortcuts, but found anything like that at google.com.

Any hint?
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RPMozley
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Re: Opening new tab changes cursor position in Google

Post by RPMozley »

I'm afraid this is all down to how google is displaying your search results. What you're seeing is not a normal HTML page but a JavaScript object. So when you see a link it's not actually a 'real' link, it's some sort of code that will eventually get you to the page you wanted. Unfortunately this results in your search page being refreshed forcing it back up to the top.
I'm afraid I've had enough of it a while back and have moved on to the DuckDuckGo search engine.
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jonst52
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Joined: August 2nd, 2006, 1:23 pm

Re: Opening new tab changes cursor position in Google

Post by jonst52 »

Yes, RPMozley, it's definitely a Javascript-related issue. I wonder why this only happens in Camino. I tried in other browsers and all of them behave as expected.
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RPMozley
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Re: Opening new tab changes cursor position in Google

Post by RPMozley »

Well "other browsers" have a different javascript engine in them, apart from Firefox 3.6.28 which is the same as Camino's, so they're more than likely to display things differently.
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jonst52
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Joined: August 2nd, 2006, 1:23 pm

Re: Opening new tab changes cursor position in Google

Post by jonst52 »

The "other browsers" that I tested included Firefox 3.6.28 (the only Firefox I have in my machine). Google works as expected with it.
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