Browser-laptop: Menu should not be activated with ALT key

[Superbest]

Original issue description

Did you search for similar issues before submitting this one?
Tried looking for "Alt D new tab" but got nothing relevant.

Describe the issue you encountered:
I open Brave with one blank tab. I want to go to www.example.com. I press Alt+D to focus URL bar (as in many other browsers). I type "www.example.com", press enter. The site URL opens as expected, but Brave immediately opens a new tab and focuses it. I then have to close this new tab to view the site I just opened.

The problem is not due to Alt+D but specifically due to Alt which focuses the menu bar. Pressing Alt makes the menu bar visible, if enter is pressed while it is visible a new tab will be opened. It can be avoided by pressing Esc after Alt+D but before pressing enter, this de-focuses the menu bar (it remains visible) and prevents the unexpected tab opening.

Expected behavior:
I expect the browse to behave the same as if I clicked the URL bar instead of used Alt+D - no new tab opened.

• Platform (Win7, 8, 10? macOS? Linux distro?):
  Happens on both Windows 7 and Arch Linux.

• Brave Version:
  Confirmed on 0.12.9-10 but happened on a few other versions (can't recall exactly which now). I think it's a 0.12.* issue. This bug wouldn't happen in older versions, at least as far back as 0.9, and since I only noticed it recently I don't think it happened in 0.11.*.

• Steps to reproduce:

  1. Open Brave.
  2. Press Alt+D to focus URL bar.
  3. Type in address (or just leave whatever is there).
  4. Press enter.
  5. New tab opens.

Alternatively:
1. Click URL bar and type something.
2. While URL bar still has focus press Alt, bringing up the menu.
3. Press Enter.
4. New tab opens. If before Enter you press Escape, it won't.

[cndouglas]

Possibly related to #5540.

As a workaround, you can use the shortcut Ctrl+L instead.

[JAffleck]

I noticed the same behavior as alt+d opening a new tab by doing ctrl + enter to add the '.com' to the end of an address.
The .com is added, but then another tab is created.

[Superbest]

@Liunkae Ctrl+L does not have the problem for me as well. I had noticed that also, but forgot to put in original post. Also, I feel it's worth pointing out that Alt+D is much easier to do without using the mouse hand.

Also, yes, related to #5540 but don't think it's quite the same thing. Incidentally, I cannot reproduce #5540 (see that thread) but can reproduce #5775 on Brave 0.12.10.

@JAffleck I had noticed that as well. I think the culprit is solely the Alt issue I describe. If you use my or @Liunkae 's workaround before pressing Ctrl+Enter then everything works as expected.

[JAffleck]

Thanks @Liunkae! I'll do that until I see it fixed

On Nov 30, 2016 5:25 PM, "Superbest" [e-mail] wrote:

@Liunkae https://github.com/Liunkae Ctrl+L does not have the problem
for me as well. I had noticed that also, but forgot to put in original post.

Also, yes, related to #5540
https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/issues/5540 but don't think
it's quite the same thing. Incidentally, I cannot reproduce #5540
https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/issues/5540 (see that thread)
but can reproduce #5775
https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/issues/5775 on Brave 0.12.10.

@JAffleck https://github.com/JAffleck I had noticed that as well. I
think the culprit is solely the Alt issue I describe. If you use my or
@Liunkae https://github.com/Liunkae 's workaround before pressing
Ctrl+Enter then everything works as expected.

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[bsclifton]

+1 from Twitter:
https://twitter.com/brave/status/799358465428713472

[bsclifton]

Another +1 involving menu bar antics from Twitter:
https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/804429129751752704

It's worth mentioning that we can fix the behavior for Windows, but we may not be able to fix the behavior on Linux, since we're not controlling / rendering the menu created

[bsclifton]

+1 from https://community.brave.com/t/alt-d-keyboard-shortcut/535

[bsclifton]

+1 with https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/issues/7323

the menu shows up when I simply Alt+Left/Right to navigate to Next/Prev pages or Shift+Alt to switch kbd layout.

[valtih1978]

I wonder why you leave this narrow issue open while closing the general one? The problem is that Alt activates the main menu and this causes all kinds of problems, including Alt+Left/Right to navigate, Shift+Alt to switch the language, Alt+D to enter the URL and got knows what. This makes Brave absolutely unusable. Why do you close the general issue #7323 yet leave Alt+D issue open? This is very unscientific to specialize on narrow symptom instead of curing the root.

[bsclifton]

@valtih1978 you are correct- I apologize for not renaming the issue. I intended for this issue here to be a catch-all for "ALT showing menubar on Windows" issues. Several use cases are captured above, I had forgotten to rename the issue

Unless a community member grabs this, I'll be the one working on it so I'm already familiar with (and have an idea of) the fix I'd like to implement (which is for the root cause). In those cases I need to be better about communicating 😄

[bsclifton]

Got a PR up for the issue! Thanks for all the great information, folks 😄

My fix will only work on Windows. For linux, we have a separate issue captured here:
https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/issues/5540

[bsclifton]

After restoring the shortcuts, I realized this fix didn't completely fix the issue. Re-opening...

[Tenvolin]

I'm on Windows 10, using the (x64) version 0.15.2 and can reproduce this ALT key issue.
Pressing down ALT + d still activates the menu and makes browsing a little annoying when entering search terms or new addresses.
@bsclifton

[stonysam]

I confirm this issue is still happening for me on Windows 10 (x64) on version 0.18.14 and is quite annoying.

[luixxiul]

Added the issue to the milestone in case.

[orschiro]

I would suggest a setting by which the user can enable or disable the Alt menu key trigger.

[eljuno]

+1 from community https://community.brave.com/t/tabs-getting-dragged-when-switching-tabs-with-mouse-clicks-also-alt-d-opens-up-the-menu-after-going-to-the-address-bar/8151/3?u=eljuno

when pressing alt+d, it goes to the address bar but it also somehow opens the menus, (tried it on another browser it just direct me to the address bar everything seems normal)

Windows 8.1

Brave: 0.18.36
rev: 7ab85e97318fef041433b0c3d73b457205fae805
Muon: 4.3.22
libchromiumcontent: 61.0.3163.79
V8: 6.1.534.32
Node.js: 7.9.0
Update Channel: dev
OS Platform: Microsoft Windows
OS Release: 6.3.9600
OS Architecture: x64

[grand-lotus-iroh]

(L) ALT + D = broken
(R) ALT + D = works

https://streamable.com/r3hqq

I do not wish to use CTRL+L or F6.

---

Windows 10
Latest Brave

[nashuatek]

For me ALT+D is something I've trained by Chrome and makes sense when my right hand is on the mouse. While CTRL+L works it requires taking hand off the mouse and while doesn't impact functionality, does impact usability.

[eljuno]

+1 from community https://community.brave.com/t/alt-d-on-windows-user-experience/22279?u=eljuno

The Alt+d keyboard shortcut is useful for putting your cursor in the Address bar & highlighting the text. This works, but it also causes the file menu to appear on the browser.

[n8udd]

+1 here. I've just come to log this as an issue.

To me the title of this issue is slightly misleading.

The default behaviour in Windows is that pressing the ALT key on it's own should show a hidden menu.

Pressing ALT+KEY shouldn't trigger the hidden menu.

This suggests that the title should be 'Menu should not be activated with ALT+D as to me, pressing the ALT key on my own, I would want to open the menu.

[tanev]

+1 here as well - with dual keyboard layouts, one would need to switch to a different layout frequently in different tabs. Triggering the menu bar on ALT+SHIFT now requires an additional ALT keypress afterwards to hide the menu bar.

EDIT: One think I haven't noticed before is that using ALT+LEFT_ARROW (shortcut for getting back to last page) is also showing the menu bar.

[msherman64]

+1 here, still happening on version 0.23.73 with windows 10 Version 10.0.17134 Build 17134. Issue is with alt+d combo, alt+arrows seem to work.

[bsclifton]

I know this isn't the best news, but I don't think we'll fix this with browser-laptop. We're shifting development efforts towards brave-core where this is already solved (since there is no menu on Windows)

For those interested, it's still in an experimental stage, but there are builds available in case you'd like to preview what's coming soon

[JonathanDavidArndt]

This is still an issue in Brave 0.24.0 for Windows 7.

As noted by earlier:
(right) ALT+D works as expected
(left) ALT+D _(the one that you would actually use if your other hand was using the mouse)_, activates the file menu