Several problems noticed in SeaMonkey Composer.

Discussion of bugs in Seamonkey
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Potatofox
Posts: 11
Joined: October 2nd, 2015, 7:59 am

Several problems noticed in SeaMonkey Composer.

Post by Potatofox »

Hello!
Since a few years I use Composer pages of SeaMonkey as a WYSIWYG text editor in which I can make tables, I don't use it at all for site publishing.

Maybe another software would be better for this use but I don't know much computing, so I don't know it. And this one rather works for me.
Using it made me notice some problems, so here I give my list in hope some would be solved in the future. If there are answers that ask me questions or tests on a problem I've seen, I'm no sure to be able to answer because I miss a bit time but I'll try.

- SeaMonkey version was 2.53.15 at my last use but I had seen these problems often in more ancient versions, sometimes 1 year ago (but usually at each release I do Ctrl+F with "Composer" word in https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/ page, and there are never results so even not verified since 1 year they must still be present).
- I am under Lubuntu 22.04 64 bits.

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1/ A simple click in a Composer table always makes the page "to save".
It is a bug I guess, not very annoying but a bit yet, makes waste time.
If I click anywhere else in a Composer page, I don't have to save it, but if I just click in a table the "Saving" icon turns blue, and if not, of course when I close the page SeaMonkey opens a pop-up asking me if I want to save it before closing, which had no resaon to happen if I had written nothing new, but happens simply because my clic came in a table.


2/ Scrolling in a Composer page with arrow keys doesn't work well in a table.
With a keyboard you can scroll a page "line by line" or "screen by screen", according to arrow keys you chose. That has for me always worked normally on all internet or text pages (except rare particular cases).
In a SeaMonkey Composer page, it works until it encounters a table, there it sometimes works, but often, at a certain table line the down arrow key will make the screen up, down, and up, down, etc. To be able to scroll again I have to click somewhere else in the table, for example, or scroll "line by line", or else.


3/ Ctrl+Z/Y almost doesn't work in Composer tables.
Going backwards/forwards in text modifications almost never works here, if I'm not wrong, Ctrl+Y never works, merely Ctrl+Z can be done for only 1 time.
Though, this feature seems to work normally out of tables.


4/ "Merge selected cells", and columns suppressing, can break tables.
I'm not sure of exactly when it happens, but it is more or less this I think.
It seems to happen rarely but sometimes, when I've created a table (I put cellpadding and cellspacing to 0 to save space, in case it could have an influence), with cells and columns, filled it with text... And at a moment I select a line and I merge its cells. And later I suppress some columns (maybe it would be the same if I add some?).

Not always, but sometimes, not long later, I realize some functions are not possible anymore in the table, like:
- Merge again line cells.
- Suppress a line or a column.
- Probably others, maybe add a line or column.
And sometimes or always, I can see an kind of empty column at the right of the table, not a real column, like a white space of a few pixels. Or this sort of column can maybe be instead into the table, making a bit weird an actual cell or column (I don't remember very well).

And, last time it happened to me, I could correct it in the source code.
I could see an empty column in the right side of the table, and after a line of which I had merged cells, 5 or 6 (small and empty) cells.
Going in the source code, I could see that at this line <tr> and </tr> weren't around <td> and </td> (or something like that). I just corrected it in the code, and the table worked again!
I explained how to correct it more in details here http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... &t=3088052 in the topic opened by another user who had met the same issue.
This problem came more than once to me.


5/ When drag'n'drop a piece of text in SeaMonkey Composer, pop-up text hides the place where you want to move it.
Sometimes I have to move some more or less big pieces of text, so I select them and I drag'n drop them at the place I want.
But when doing this, I get a small problem, that is some bothering. The piece is reproduced (a bit smaller) under the cursor, as an image, that is probably an interesting feature as it shows that the piece moving is on its way, but when I want to drop it precisely e.g. between two words, this image hides the precise place I want, and I sometimes miss it and have to redo.
Finally I made the great discover that I could avoid this by positioning the cursor on the upper border of the selected piece before clicking, instead of doing it in the middle. Doing it this way, the place where the piece will be droped, and the cursor showing it, are visible, instead of being hidden.
Nevertheless this is maybe still a problem, as not everyone would put the cursor on the border, and then could encounter the same issue. Not big issue, but real issue I think. So maybe those "big miniatures" should be abandonned? And replaced by a small icon or by a cursor modification like in a simple text editor?

Later I made a switch from LXQt to Cinnamon environment (seems not officially supported by Lubuntu, but often better than the default one!), and the problem has half disappeared, as when moved, the text stuck under the arrow is just this text half transparent, so even when selecting it in the middle, you can more or less see under it the cursor where it will be dropped.
I didn't know this kind of displaying could be changed according to the environment.


6/ Tabulation key not working in tables.
Instead of creating tabulations, it sends you to the next cell.

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Following problems are less sure to me.
I missed a bit time to do more tests.

7/ "Internal links" don't work in Composer pages?
In Composer pages, I tried to make "internal links/anchors/..." (not sure of the name), but they really don't work, when I click them nothing happens.

Trying to make hyperlinks (towards a web page) seems to be the same in fact, you can't click them.

I didn't make very much tests so maybe "internal links/anchors" can work, so can someone tell how to do?


8/ Background color of a table cell can't be immediatly overridden when selecting several?
A small thing that doesn't disturb me very much but maybe it would be an improvement anyway?
If I select a whole table line with "Right click > Table select > Line" and modify its background color, it is done normally. But afterwards, if in the same table I select a column with the same "Table select > Column", il will meet a cell that I just modified previously, and this time modifying the backgroung color won't work right away, I have to first put it to default, and secondly to modify the column background color. I guess it could be done in only one step by overriding the first color?


9/ "Details/summary" element sometimes leaving only text.
Around 1 year ago I've used the new details/summary html element https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/doc ... nt/details to hide/show big amounts of text in a table (for space gain). It allows to hide text and display it only when its line is clicked on.
Later when I clicked on certain of the "summary" text I had made, to show "details", the text was still here but many things had disappeared: all "underlyings" I had done and all "new line" (so all the text was on 1 single line!), and I guess many or all other formattings would have disappeared if I had put them.
Maybe it could be linked to the pop-up

Code: Select all

Script : chrome://editor/content/editorUtilities.js:202
that appeared sometimes in a moment when only Composer (and not Browser) window was open, but I don't understand what these pop-ups say it's too complicated for me.
But I don't think it is this one with "editorUtilities.js:202", I had just copied the text when a problem had come one day, but it was probably a different pop-up that displayed and gave me impression that it was linked to the "formattings" disappearance but like I said I'm not even sure they are linked.

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And I saw today in this forum that Composer seems complicated to fix.
"Composer bug" http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... &t=3097403 .
Ubuntu user (but looking for better).
Sorry for my bad english I'm french.
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