Bug#347726: epiphany-browser: typing in URL box has annoying completion behavior

[Lars Wirzenius]

Package: epiphany-browser
Version: 1.6.5-2
Severity: normal

One of the things I do quite often, up to tens of times a day, is look
up a particular bug by number. These often happen sequentially, one
after the other. I therefore type in control-L (to move focus to and
select all of the text in the URL box in the toolbar, i.e., the URL to
the previous bug I was looking at), right-arrow (to unselect and move
cursor to the end of the box), control-backspace (to remove the bug
number from the end of the URL), type in the new number, and then press
Enter.

The way the completion thing works is that if the current text in the
URL box is a prefix of one or more of the URLs in the history list,
those URLs are shown in a drop-down list under the URL box. If I want
to, I can then use the up/down arrow keys to select one. So far so good.

The problem is that depending on timing, Epiphany sometimes (more often
if I'm typing fast, it seems to me) decides to not just list the URLs
but also selects the first one. This means that if I press Enter, the
selected URL in the list is selected, even if I have since typed in some
more text into the URL box.

When I'm hack mode, I can type really, really fast, and it seems that
I'm typing faster than what Epiphany can react to. As a result, up to
tens of times per day, I go to the *wrong* bug page. This is really,
really annoying. It is so annoying that it can drop me right out of hack
mode, resulting in at least fifteen minutes of lost productivity.

This happens, of course, with any other sets of pages as well, as long
as what I am editing the URL box triggers the drop-down list to appear.
I can avoid it happening by introducing artificial delays into my
typing. That is also really, really annoying.

I have tried to fiddle with some settings in about:config, but that
doesn't seem to have any effect. I don't know if this is an Epiphany
bug, a GTK+ bug, or perhaps a Mozilla bug, since I'm not familiar with
the internals, but I assume it is an Epiphany bug. I haven't had such
trouble with any other app, although, admittedly, none of my other
apps have quite the same kind of usage patterns as Epiphany does.


-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.12-1-686
Locale: LANG=fi_FI.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fi_FI.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)

Versions of packages epiphany-browser depends on:
ii  dbus-1                   0.23.4-8        simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  dbus-glib-1              0.23.4-8        simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  gconf2                   2.10.1-6        GNOME configuration database syste
ii  gnome-icon-theme         2.10.1-2        GNOME Desktop icon theme
ii  iso-codes                0.49-1          ISO language, territory, currency 
ii  libart-2.0-2             2.3.17-1        Library of functions for 2D graphi
ii  libatk1.0-0              1.10.3-1        The ATK accessibility toolkit
ii  libbonobo2-0             2.10.1-1        Bonobo CORBA interfaces library
ii  libbonoboui2-0           2.10.1-1        The Bonobo UI library
ii  libc6                    2.3.5-8         GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  libgcc1                  1:4.0.2-5       GCC support library
ii  libgconf2-4              2.10.1-6        GNOME configuration database syste
ii  libglade2-0              1:2.5.1-2       library to load .glade files at ru
ii  libglib2.0-0             2.8.4-2         The GLib library of C routines
ii  libgnome-desktop-2       2.10.2-1        Utility library for loading .deskt
ii  libgnome2-0              2.10.1-1        The GNOME 2 library - runtime file
ii  libgnomecanvas2-0        2.10.2-2        A powerful object-oriented display
ii  libgnomeui-0             2.10.1-1        The GNOME 2 libraries (User Interf
ii  libgnomevfs2-0           2.10.1-5        The GNOME virtual file-system libr
ii  libgtk2.0-0              2.8.9-2         The GTK+ graphical user interface 
ii  libice6                  6.8.2.dfsg.1-11 Inter-Client Exchange library
ii  liborbit2                1:2.12.4-1      libraries for ORBit2 - a CORBA ORB
ii  libpango1.0-0            1.10.1-2        Layout and rendering of internatio
ii  libpopt0                 1.7-5           lib for parsing cmdline parameters
ii  libsm6                   6.8.2.dfsg.1-11 X Window System Session Management
ii  libstartup-notification0 0.8-1           library for program launch feedbac
ii  libstdc++6               4.0.2-5         The GNU Standard C++ Library v3
ii  libx11-6                 6.8.2.dfsg.1-11 X Window System protocol client li
ii  libxml2                  2.6.22-2        GNOME XML library
ii  libxslt1.1               1.1.15-2        XSLT processing library - runtime 
ii  mozilla-browser          2:1.7.12-1      The Mozilla Internet application s
ii  mozilla-psm              2:1.7.12-1      The Mozilla Internet application s
ii  xlibs                    6.8.2.dfsg.1-11 X Window System client libraries m
ii  zlib1g                   1:1.2.3-9       compression library - runtime

Versions of packages epiphany-browser recommends:
ii  epiphany-extensions           1.6.6-1    Extensions for Epiphany web browse
ii  yelp                          2.10.0-3   Help browser for GNOME 2

-- no debconf information