This is a weird one to describe. Generally, when selecting text with a mouse, you click where you want to click. Then if you drag the mouse up, the text to the left (in left-to-right language) gets selected up until the point of the cursor on the line(s) above. The opposite happens when you click and drag down, text to the right becomes selected until the cursor on the lines below. I have attached a video of the URL bar difference between Firefox, and Chromium wherein the former, you select mid URL and can drag up to select all text to the left, and down to select all text right. Chromium as of 14.04 has been acting different, wherein, the text is selected only as far left, or right the curser is dragged, totally ignoring the vertical motion.
Expected Behavior:
I would expect the URL bar in Chromium to adhere more strictly to the common practice of selecting until end of line when mouse cursor is moved vertically in the correct direction.
ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.10
Package: chromium-browser 37.0.2062.94-0ubuntu1~pkg1065
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.16.0-23.31-generic 3.16.4
Uname: Linux 3.16.0-23-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.14.7-0ubuntu8
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: GNOME
Date: Fri Oct 24 10:26:47 2014
InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-08-29 (55 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-GNOME 14.04.1 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Release amd64 (20140722.2)
ProcEnviron:
TERM=xterm
PATH=(custom, no user)
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: chromium-browser
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to utopic on 2014-10-24 (0 days ago)
modified.conffile..etc.default.chromium.browser: [deleted]
This is, I think, intentional. The location bar is too short to expect people to stay within it completely when dragging to select text. For gross gestures like "delete everything after this", it's easy to drag the mouse to the edge. There should be a fine gesture too, where it's easy to select like "ubunu/+source/" in this page's URL, to delete it.
I am not completely certain, though. Convince upstream (Freenode #chromium), and I'll prepare them a patch so everyone gets the result. I don't want to carry a patch that makes Ubuntu different than everyone else.
The next step is either Confirmed or Invalid, once upstream has rendered an opinion.