Description: The Find sidebar can be opened using the Alt+9 shortcut. If you perform a search and then return to editing the document, a further pressing Alt+9 will take you to the search field, but it will not highlight (select) the last search string. To set a new string for search, you must manually delete the old value. Steps to Reproduce: 1. Open document, write some text. 2. Press Alt-9 and write some search string into the field, press ENTER. 3. Go back to the document and edit it. 4. Press Alt-9. Actual Results: You are brought to the Find field, but the previous string remains without to be selected. Old string has to be deleted manually. Expected Results: The same behaviour but with selected text, so you directly start to write the new string, which will delete the old one. Reproducible: Always User Profile Reset: No Additional Info: Version: 25.2.3.2 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community Build ID: bbb074479178df812d175f709636b368952c2ce3 CPU threads: 16; OS: Windows 10 X86_64 (10.0 build 19045); UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Annoyance confirmed, currently the SB Find deck is limited to one search string that must be cleared on reopening if a new/repeat search is needed for work flow. Seems the SB Find deck could be improved by reusing the same "FindReplaceRememberedSearches" controlled input and stack handling used by the <Ctrl>+H Find and Replace and the <Ctrl>+F Quick Find bar (and the Repeat Search of the SB Navigator deck)?
For me, gtk3/4 vcl plugins select the text in the search/find entry when Alt-9 is pressed. x11/win and qt5/6 vcl plugins do not. It doesn't look easy to change the behavior of these to match the gtk3/4 behavior. Possibly after pressing Alt-9, pressing Ctrl-a to select all text in the search/find entry is close enough?
We should aim for an automatic full selection. How about doing it programmatically when the control receives focus? The F&R dialog does the expected, maybe we have a line of code that can be taken into the sidebar method.
Thank to all for the effort. (In reply to Jim Raykowski from comment #2) > Possibly after > pressing Alt-9, pressing Ctrl-a to select all text in the search/find entry > is close enough? As a user, I would argue that this is insufficient. All the apps I know perform auto-selection on the next search. The Alt-A shortcut is therefore inconvenient, as it requires users to remember the special behaviour in LO. I would like to mention a similar bug existed in another app (as I can remember, it was PDF Foxit Reader) a few years ago, which was also heavily criticized within the community.
I gave selecting the text in the find entry during focus in a shot. It has a bit of glitch with gtk3/4. I notice the same issue with the F&R dialog. When keyboard focus is not in the find box and text in the find box is not selected and the mouse is clicked on the text it becomes selected and then not selected. https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/191600
Jim Raykowski committed a patch related to this issue. It has been pushed to "master": https://git.libreoffice.org/core/commit/4f33bb0f672a450ee5f2a4fd502398f2008fd7a8 tdf#168560 Sidebar Find: Select text on keyboard focus in find entry box It will be available in 26.2.0. The patch should be included in the daily builds available at https://dev-builds.libreoffice.org/daily/ in the next 24-48 hours. More information about daily builds can be found at: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Testing_Daily_Builds Affected users are encouraged to test the fix and report feedback.
Jim Raykowski committed a patch related to this issue. It has been pushed to "libreoffice-25-8": https://git.libreoffice.org/core/commit/63765c15a10cf41123c31b917d7aa9358405456b tdf#168560 Sidebar Find: Select text on keyboard focus in find entry box It will be available in 25.8.3. The patch should be included in the daily builds available at https://dev-builds.libreoffice.org/daily/ in the next 24-48 hours. More information about daily builds can be found at: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Testing_Daily_Builds Affected users are encouraged to test the fix and report feedback.