# cursor jumping in Chrome



## Gavril

Hi,

In the last week or so, I’ve noticed that when I start a WR thread in Chrome and put text in italics/boldface/etc., the cursor will start “jumping” unpredictably around the WR text window: if I type some italicized text, and then press the backspace key, the cursor will suddenly leap back to the point in the text before the italics started.

I still don’t fully understand the mechanics of the “cursor jumping”, but it’s enough of an inconvenience that I’ve started typing all my posts in an external Word document, and then cutting/pasting them into WR (hoping that the relevant formatting will be preserved).

I’m just curious if others have noticed this problem, and if there’s any upgrade forthcoming that will take care of it?

Regards,
Gavril


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## jann

To reply in general terms, yes, there are some issues with the editor... and cursor jumping, especially with italics at the end of a line, has come up in the past.  It seems that each update of the vBulletin software platform that these forums run on brings its share of fixes and new issues.  Let's hope they get it taken care of...


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## Gavril

jann said:


> To reply in general terms, yes, there are some issues with the editor... and cursor jumping, especially with italics at the end of a line, has come up in the past.  It seems that each update of the vBulletin software platform that these forums run on brings its share of fixes and new issues.  Let's hope they get it taken care of...



The cursor jumping happens wherever there are italics, not just when they're at the end of a line.

Also, this problem seems to occur in Firefox as well.


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## Gavril

FYI, it's been about six months since I noticed the cursor-jumping problem, and it *still* hasn't been fixed: whenever I type italicized text in Chrome, and then press backspace or the left arrow button, the cursor jumps back to the point where the italics begin, rather than simply one space back.

As far as I can tell, this bug is present on any Windows Vista machine running Chrome. I wouldn't be surprised if it was affecting Chrome users on Windows 7 and Macs as well.

If any moderators are reading this, can you please tell me when you expect this problem to be fixed?

Thank you.


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## jann

Hello Gavril,

I'm sorry to hear you're still experiencing this issue.  


			
				Gavril said:
			
		

> if I type some italicized text, and then press the backspace key, the  cursor will suddenly leap back to the point in the text before the  italics started.


There is an error reporting system for alerting vBulletin to bugs they need to take care of in a future release.  I just searched that error database to see if anyone else has complained about your problem.  People did, back in Oct./Nov. 2011.  At that point, people using Chrome 14 (which was the current stable release at the time) were unaffected, but people running Chrome 16beta (which was obviously in beta mode last fall) had this cursor jump.  Since the issue was limited to the beta version of Chrome and seemed unrelated to vB code, no further steps were taken and the issue report was closed.  vB does not investigate bugs that can only be reproduced in the beta version of a browser. 

There are several other bug reports related to strange cursor behavior in Chrome when using the backspace key in a post that contains bold/italic/etc. formatting...  but they do not quite match your description.  

Please make sure you're running an up-to-date stable (non-beta) version of Chrome.  If that doesn't solve the problem, then we can proceed from there.  

FYI: Generally speaking it takes > 6 mos. for errors to be resolved.  After a bug is reported to vB, it must be confirmed, investigated, &  resolved by their programming staff.  The solution must then be tested  and integrated into a future version, and that version released... and  then our site administrator here on WR needs to update our forums to  apply the new release.

Jann
Moderator


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## Gavril

Hello,

I'm using the latest version of Chrome (24.0.1312.57) available to me, and the cursor jumping problem has remained exactly the same for more than a year, whenever I've used Wordreference on Chrome.

Can you please report this problem to vBulletin the next time you have a chance? Here's a quick summary that you can send them:



> 1) I'm running WR on the latest version of Chrome
> 2) In the WR message composition window, I switch the formatting to italics, boldface, or underlining
> 3) I type some text with this formatting
> 4) I turn this formatting off
> 5) later, I click the backspace button or the backwards arrow (because I want to correct/edit something)
> 6) the cursor leaps* all the way back* to the point in the text where the formatting (italics/bold/underline) began, rather than just one space back



Thank you,
Gavril


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## mkellogg

I think this is related to this (fixed) bug report.  I think it will be fixed with the next update of the vBulletin forum software, but that might not happen for a number of months.

Mike


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## Gavril

Hi mkellogg,



mkellogg said:


> I think this is related to this (fixed) bug report.  I think it will be fixed with the next update of the vBulletin forum software, but that might not happen for a number of months.
> 
> Mike



Thanks for responding. The discussion that you linked to is on the website dev.ckeditor.com -- is this site directly linked to the development of vBulletin's software? (I ask because I think that vBulletin.com also has its own forum for reporting bugs.)

Also, I noticed that the discussion you linked to started 14 months ago (and hasn't been updated for 11 months). In message #5, Jann mentioned that the cursor-jumping problem was reported in Oct./Nov. 2011 -- which is also almost exactly 14 months ago -- and then the issue was closed, because they believed that it had to do with a beta version of Chrome in use at the time.

Therefore, I think it might still be worthwhile to forward my report to vBulletin, just in case they aren't already addressing this problem for the next vBulletin update. Would that be possible?

Thanks,
Gavril


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## mkellogg

vBulletin has their own bug database, but when they find that the problem is with the CKEditor that is embedded in their product, they rely on the CKEditor team to do the work.  That is what is happening here, and I think we just need to wait now.


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## Gavril

mkellogg said:


> vBulletin has their own bug database, but when they find that the problem is with the CKEditor that is embedded in their product, they rely on the CKEditor team to do the work.  That is what is happening here, and I think we just need to wait now.



Well, six more months have passed now, and I have the newest version of Chrome (for Win 8), but the cursor-jumping problem is still there, unchanged since I first noticed it nearly two years ago.

Do you still think it's likely that this issue will be fixed with the next vBulletin update? (I'm not sure when the most recent update was.)

Regards,
Gavril


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## Chasint

It's now several months since the previous post and a lot more since the original.  There is still no progress. I avoid Internet Explorer with Wordreference because it times out when using the editor for more than a few seconds. I therefore use Chrome. I don't have trouble with timeouts now but the editor has to be watched carefully or it produces nonsense. This is not just to do with italics as some have suggested. In my experience the cursor jumps randomly and for no obvious reason.

I wonder if the two problems are connected. Does the lack of timeouts on Chrome cause the server to become confused?

Question: Does anyone know if this problem is under consideration and, if so, by whom?


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## mkellogg

I've given up hope that vBulletin will fix these bugs.  They might, but I don't think that they care enough.

This summer, I expect that we will move on to another forum software package that hopefully doesn't have these problems.  That is the best I can do.


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## Chasint

Okay, thanks.


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## Kelly B

I have the same issue, for what it's worth - that's no help, but sometimes it's nice to know you're not alone....


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## Gavril

The newest version of Firefox for Windows 8 seems to be free of the cursor-jumping problem.


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## Chasint

I'm still on Windows 7. I'm going to try Firefox.

IMPORTANT If others are thinking about this, make sure you get Firefox from the official site. There's a fake one that looks really plausible but my anti-virus says is full of nasties.

UPDATE: Okay, I'm now using Firefox for Wordreference, I'll let you know if it works.


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## Chasint

UPDATE 

I have been using Firefox with Windows 7 since yesterday.

All the editing problems have gone.  There are some aspects of Chrome that I miss (the ability to refresh a page for example) but the improved editing makes learning the foibles of the new browser worthwhile.

Thanks Gavril.


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## Paulfromitaly

Biffo said:


> All the editing problems have gone.  There are some aspects of Chrome that I miss (the ability to refresh a page for example) but the improved editing makes learning the foibles of the new browser worthwhile.



Every browser offers you the ability to refresh a page.. (try pressing F5)


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## Chasint

Thanks. That's very useful. Can you tell me how to duplicate a tab? If I can do that then my happiness is complete!

Where do I find these universal commands that apply to all browsers?


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## Paulfromitaly

Biffo said:


> Thanks. That's very useful. Can you tell me how to duplicate a tab? If I can do that then my happiness is complete!
> 
> Where do I find these universal commands that apply to all browsers?



CTRL + T.

It works in every browser.


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## Chasint

Paulfromitaly said:


> CTRL + T.
> 
> It works in every browser.


That's not quite the same. It just gives a new tab. In chrome you can duplicate the current tab with right-click.


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## Paulfromitaly

If you want to duplicate the current tab in FF you can Ctrl-click or middle-click the Reload button on the location bar.


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## Chasint

Yes - that works. Thank you.


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## EStjarn

Gavril said:


> I’m just curious if others have noticed this problem...



I have this problem too, but I notice that it can be avoided by holding down the shift key when pressing the backspace key.

I'm going to test it right now:_Hello there!
_
After typing "Hello there!" in italics, I pressed the backspace key without holding down the shift key, and, as you can see, the space after the colon was deleted, and that's to where the cursor jumped.

Now doing the test again, holding down the shift key: _Hello there
_
It worked: the exclamation mark was deleted, and the cursor stayed where it should, ready to make the edit: _Hello there?_


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## Kelly B

You are wonderful. Yes yes yes _​y__es_. Thanks!


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## Chasint

That's a weird workaround! How did you discover it?

____________________________________________________________________
P.S.

I'm still using Firefox browser specifically for WR and it works perfectly with no problems at all that I can detect. You can find it here http://www.mozilla.org


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## EStjarn

Biffo said:


> That's a weird workaround! How did you discover it?



By fortuitous happenstance.


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