firefox 3.6 has discontinuous drop-down menus when minimum font size is set

[Rocko]

Binary package hint: firefox

The drop-down menus become disjoint vertically in Firefox 3.6 when you set a minimum font size. Then when you move the mouse down to select a menu option, if you move it too slowly, the menu disappears, which makes using menus frustrating. This is a regression from Firefox 3.5.

To reproduce:

1. Run Firefox 3.6. Edit Preferences / Content / Font & Colours Advanced / and set Minimum font size to nothing.

2. Go to a site like http://www.hoyts.com.au and move the mouse over one of the menu 'buttons' like 'Movies' or 'Cinemas' to make the drop-down menu appear. With no minimum font size the drop down continuous.

2. Edit Preferences / Content / Font & Colours Advanced / and choose Minimum font size (eg 13).

3. Return to the website 'Movies' or 'Cinema' button. When the drop-down appears, there is now a gap between the 'Movies' button and the drop-down menu. If you move the mouse into the gap, the menu disappears. (If you move the mouse quickly through the gap, it doesn't disappear.)

The gaps also appear horizontally on pages where there is a sideways drop-down menu for the options in the vertical drop-down.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sun Feb 21 08:59:23 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
FirefoxPackages:
 firefox 3.6+nobinonly-0ubuntu4
 firefox-gnome-support 3.6+nobinonly-0ubuntu4
 firefox-branding 3.6+nobinonly-0ubuntu4
 abroswer N/A
 abrowser-branding N/A
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Alpha amd64 (20100113)
Package: firefox 3.6+nobinonly-0ubuntu4
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_AU.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-14.20-generic
SourcePackage: firefox
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-14-generic x86_64

[Draycen DeCator (ddecator)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. I have been able to confirm this on both Firefox 3.6 and Firefox 3.7, the only difference between the two being how long it takes for the drop-down menu to disappear on the site (takes longer with FF 3.7).

I also confirmed this on Opera, so it is not a Firefox issue alone. I could not test on Chrome because I could not find a setting for minimum font size.

I also found that the larger the minimum font size, the larger the gap is.

I am marking this "Confirmed" while I continue to do more testing.

[Rocko (rockorequin)]

Hey, thanks for taking the effort to reproduce this.

Something that might be relevant to this issue is that the menus have a fixed size now, whereas in Firefox 3.5 they would be as wide as the menu text required. This means that the menu text gets truncated, making it hard to read.

[Draycen DeCator (ddecator)]

This bug also occurs on Windows with Firefox 3.6, so the problem is upstream. I will look to see if this has been reported to Mozilla yet.

[Draycen DeCator (ddecator)]

Upon further testing, I have not been able to reproduce this bug on any other site than the one provided in the description. As a result, I am hesitant to submit this bug upstream since it may be an issue with how the website itself has been programmed, and not a problem with Firefox.

@Rocko
Are there any other websites that you have experienced this bug on that I can test?

[Rocko (rockorequin)]

I have seen it happen on other sites, but of course now I look I can't find them any more - that kind of drop-down menu isn't so popular in html.

Since this happens in so many other browsers (and I've heard it happens in IE8 as well), perhaps there was a change in the html specification (or perhaps these newer browsers now comply with it in this regard). I only reported this because FF 3.5 didn't do have these gaps, so I assumed it was a regression, but perhaps it's actually a progression and therefore not a bug.

[Draycen DeCator (ddecator)]

It could be the website not being compliant with evolving HTML standards. I will try to look more into the script they are using so I can see if it is correct or not.

[Draycen DeCator (ddecator)]

I have looked at the source coding for the site, but I unfortunately do not know enough about website scripting to know if this problem is with the browsers or with the site itself. I will try to research the scripting language more, or find somebody who knows more about it then I do so we can figure out how to process this report.

[Draycen DeCator (ddecator)]

It appears that this problem is most likely due to the coding on the site and not a problem with Firefox itself. As a result, I am closing this report. If you are able to find other sites that present the same issue, feel free to reset the status of this report to "New" and provide us with links to those sites. Please continue to report any problems that you encounter!