Duplicate Something's wrong with highlighting text using shift and left arrow key

⭐ Alex ⭐

⭐ Alex ⭐

Well-known member
Affected version
2.2 XenForo.com
This happens on xenforo.com, I don't know if it affects other forums.

In the text editor while trying to make a post, if I hold shift and tap left arrow key to select, one tap left will select one character. The next tap left will clear the selection.

Selecting in the right wards direction works fine, it's the right direction after all, it's just going left that's borked.

Tested on Chromium and Firefox, both are borked.
 
Never noticed this before, but turning off BB code restores the function to what the OP is expecting.

The issue described, doesn't happen the currently released 2.2.13 (at least not on my sites)
 
Unfortunately this is a very long standing bug with the rich text editor which was reported many years ago and hasn't received any attention.

There's a bug report here for it somewhere but I don't expect it will be fixed before we replace the editor with something else.
 
I was about to report this as a bug in 2.3 since I can only reproduce it here but not on my site running 2.2.13.
Looks like there is more to it though.
 
Chris D said:
Unfortunately this is a very long standing bug with the rich text editor which was reported many years ago and hasn't received any attention.

There's a bug report here for it somewhere but I don't expect it will be fixed before we replace the editor with something else.
Click to expand...
Yeah Chris maybe you should take a second look because it only seems to be reproducible here in this particular forum. Might not be a core product issue.
 
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Chris D said:
Unfortunately this is a very long standing bug with the rich text editor which was reported many years ago and hasn't received any attention.

There's a bug report here for it somewhere but I don't expect it will be fixed before we replace the editor with something else.
Click to expand...
Seems to be fixed in version 4.1.2

Version 4.1.2​

Release Date: Sept 12, 2023​

  • Fixed, unable to select text using Left Arrow and Shift combination
  • Fixed, comma is included in the link after pasting a link
  • Fixed, pasting a URL into the editor which includes an ampersand (&), the URL encodes in the editor
  • Fixed, text color breaks when there is other attribute than style
  • Fixed, font size does not work when contenteditable="false" is used
  • Fixed, onkeyup event expecting incorrect type
  • Fixed, Typescript errors with 4.1.1
  • Fixed, Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'isEnabled')
  • Fixed, Link Plugin Issue in IFRAME Mode: Console Error and Context Menu Behavior in Release 4.1.0
So if XF.com downgraded to a version prior to this, that's why maybe the bug is still there.

Anyway, they have a more "advanced" version with more fixes, including the annoying iPad Safari editor fix (that was fixed in version 4.1.3)

Version 4.1.4​

Release Date: Dec 07, 2023​

  • Fixed, cursor jumps when editing inputs inside a table while editor is configured for toolbarInline
  • Fixed, CVE-2023-41592 XSS vulnerability
  • Fixed, text color hex codes are not changing the text color in the editor
  • Fixed, page scrolls when we past large content with images in the editor
  • Fixed, cross-site scripting vulnerability in Froala Editor 4.1.2 / CVE-2023-43263
  • Fixed, changing text color or background causes loss of focus on selected text due to clicking the input
  • Fixed, toolbarSticky does not work as expected
  • Fixed, scrolling issue: pressing Enter scrolls window up when cursor is placed before specific text
 
I did report this issue in the 2.3 feedback thread many days ago albeit usung shift-ctrl to highlight words instead of characters.
 
BTW, this is hugely impactful for forums that have folks quoting snippets of news. Being able to easily highlight and delete chunks of copypasta is important QOL.
 
Aware of the outstanding Frolala patches that may fix this. We have been avoiding the 4.1 series initially because of the showstopper bugs they had.

I mean just look at the bugs fixed in 4.1.4 😬

Confidence is an all time low but we’ll reassess for 2.2.14 and 2.3.0 Beta.

Important to note that we’re running the same version as XF 2.2.13 so I’m unsure at this point why there is a discrepancy.
 
I did notice the selection is lost when some pop-up come up. Like link edit pop-up or table edit pop-up. Maybe that's related somehow. Maybe it tries to open a pop-up loses the selection and then does not show pop-up after all. It could be that depending of which add-on you have it causes this bug.
 
That’s what I was referring to.

Although one other issue that wasn’t fixed until recently is the fact that the return key wouldn’t work on iOS and the editor was completely broken on iPad. That was fixed after the release of 2.2.13 hence why we’re still on 4.0 at the moment.

Don’t worry guys. Not long to go before we’re tip tapping away in a new editor…
 
Chris D said:
Unfortunately this is a very long standing bug with the rich text editor which was reported many years ago and hasn't received any attention.

There's a bug report here for it somewhere but I don't expect it will be fixed before we replace the editor with something else.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure how long-standing it was, as I did this:

Chris D

Fixed Post in thread '"Insert link" doesn't respect cursor position anymore since XenForo 2.2.13'

You can always download any of the JS files we load here and upload them to your server. You’ll want js/xf/editor-compiled.js which contains the updated Froala.
  • Like

...and ever since, it has thrown off the editor with the bug that this report points out. So, for whichever version of that file came with earlier XenForo versions, the older one worked without that bug.

For whatever reason, I never did get a chance to update from 2.2.12 to 2.2.13, so the version of Froala in 2.2.12 had no issues with the highlighting as this current bug report mentions.

It appears XF's last "live" Froala update here on XF.com was on 9/19/2023. Although XF 2.2.13 was released 5/16/2023.

Chris D

Fixed Post in thread '"Insert link" doesn't respect cursor position anymore since XenForo 2.2.13'

We have rolled out Froala v4.0.19 today here which appears to have resolved this issue.
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However, putting an earlier version of Froala back in will make other bugs return. 🤦‍♂️

OK. I agree. Time to stick a fork in Froala. 😁
 
Slion said:
That could explain why my 2.2.13 installation does not have that issue but xenforo.com has.
Click to expand...
I believe so. I was holding off on 2.2.13 (from 2.2.12) partly for that reason but, since it is past the release of 2.2.13, I'll go ahead and do it. I have 2.2.13 in a development forum and it doesn't have the issue either.

This problem is so disruptive to my workflow that I won't be upgrading to 2.2.14 if it's not fixed (by Froala) before its release, or if I can't revert to the old version*. I do a lot of articles in XF now and dealing with this is a major hindrance in the middle of composing articles. I often use Ctrl-Shift-Left to wipe out a handful of words from the cursor, where now I have to hunt my way back with arrow keys or mouse, select to the end, and delete. And given other online editors, and Word for that matter, work properly, I don't really want to start learning a bad habit due to Froala's bug.

* I would think that it is possible to keep using the existing editor-compiled.js file, though, so this might not be that big of a big deal. It's beyond XF's power to fix it, so it's not their issue.
 
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