Help escalate the floating TIP bug in Firefox 3!
Have you tried the newest beta of Firefox 3 yet? I didn’t, but Sumocat noticed last week that the Tablet Input Panel, or TIP, is natively supported in the latest build. Don’t break out the pens just yet though because Rob is seeing some issues in the TIP functionality. Will this get fixed before the popular browser comes out of beta?There’s hope, according to jkOTR reader Alex who shot me a note. Alex points out Bug 409148 that he logged against the beta:
When typing in a URL using the floating tablet input panel in Windows Vista the autosuggest window that comes up after typing a few characters will appear over the TIP window, the result is the TIP window closes automatically assuming the user has moved the carrot out of the address bar input box and onto the suggestion box below, which takes no text input. This makes using firefox 3.0 impossible for tablet users who have no physical keyboard as typing in any url results in the autosuggest coming up, and the TIP support can not be turned off.
The bug has a priority of Major and is ready for research and fixing. Here’s where you come in! You can help escalate the bug, by going into the Bugzilla tracking system and voting for it. You’ll need to register for an account if you don’t have one and it looks like you initially get 1,000 votes to use. In some cases, you can apply as many or as few votes to a bug as you like, so think carefully about your voting. The higher the vote count, the more likely the bug will be researched and hopefully fixed!
Just to clarify, that was the latest build as of last week, not the new beta that was released this week.
Regarding Bug 409148, that also happens in FF2 using the GeckoTIP extension, running in Windows XP. I dodge it by sliding the TIP away from the autofill zone before I type.
Here is how you can vote on Bug 409148 – Autosuggest in address bar closes floating TIP input panel for Tablet PC Input.
Go to Bugzilla:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=409148
login and click on “vote” in the left column where is says “Votes: 4 (show) (vote)”
then click the check box next to “Enter New Vote here” and click “Change My Votes”.
Help make Firefox tablet compliant.
Thanks,
Dave
I won’t be following this bug on my Tablet until Firefox is far enough along to support the Google toolbar, but I did file the bug described at http://www.segal.org/java/TextFieldFocus/ about a Java-related problem with Firefox 3.
I hope they don’t release Firefox 3 widely until they fix things that worked OK in Firefox 2.
Votes on my bug (409209) would be appreciated too. I added a vote for 409148.
I haven’t gotten the TIP to work with Firefox in ages on my Toshiba M400, nor on my Samsung Q1. I switch to RitePen. I run a lot of add-ons, but Gecko has never worked for me. If version 3 will have it natively, halleluya, but the few times I’ve seen the floating tip pop up, it’s been a pleasant surprise because then it works.
It’s one of the ways computing continues to remind me of my old cars from the ’60s and ’70s, where random things stop working, and there’s a different trick to keeping the rest of it going requiring a knowledge of carburation (including the failure of automatic chokes), the differential, starter motors, the electrical systems, etc., etc., none of which I’ve had to know in a decade. With computers, even with snipping tools, you have to know a smattering of html, a couple dozen file formats, which format conversion program may be called for, etc., etc. It all reminds me of having my foot on the clutch, putting my toe on the break, but having my heal tapping the gas pedal to keep it from dying while elbowing the window so it won’t drop into the door, double clutching as I go into first, and jiggling the volume pot on the radio because everything comes out sounding like scratchy records. Like booting up and logging out and back in to get the icons to appear in the start tray.
There’s nothing objective about declaring a program is no longer in beta, and the patches themselves sometimes require patches.