Hi,

I am running the standard Firefox 140.6.0esr on Debian 13.

1. I usually maximise the windows in which Firefox is running. If I close a
tab via a mouse click on the 'Close tab' cross, the whole window is
sometimes, but not always, unmaximised.
2. If I close a tab via the keyboard shortcut 'Ctrl-w', this works but not if
the page on the tab contains a text field.
3. If I close a tab via the keyboard shortcut 'Ctrl-F4', this works even if
the page on the tab contains a text field.

I assume that problem 1 is caused by my fairly ancient mouse giving up the ghost, but if anyone else has experienced it, then maybe not. I don't
remember having the problem with Debian 12, but of course my mouse was younger then.

Regarding 2 and 3, is it to be expected that the two shortcuts would behave differently?

Cheers,

Loris

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On Mon, Jan 12, 2026 at 09:23:53 +0100, Loris Bennett wrote:

2. If I close a tab via the keyboard shortcut 'Ctrl-w', this works but not if
the page on the tab contains a text field.

What matters is whether the application's focus is currently inside that
text field. When you're focused on the text field, the cursor should be visible (and possibly blinking), and Ctrl-W will act as an emacs editing command. Specifically, it means "delete the word before the cursor".

If focus is NOT inside the text field, then Ctrl-W will close the tab.

Try it on https://google.com/ for example. If you click on the big
ol' text entry box in the middle of the page, you'll get editing behavior.
Try typing a few words into the entry field, then press Ctrl-W and it
should delete the most recently typed word.

If you click on the vast white background outside the entry field,
then Ctrl-W will close the tab.

The same behavior used to happen in Chrome/Brave, but recent versions
of Brave broke it. Now, Ctrl-W in Brave always closes the tab, even if
you're editing a text/entry, and Ctrl-U always opens a new tab with the
"page source" (except it's not the source of the page you're currently
looking at), even if you're editing. I wish they'd revert this change.
I opened an issue for it on their forum, but got no response. I was
able to disable Ctrl-W and Ctrl-U entirely through preferences, but I
was unable to find any way to restore their context-sensitive behavior.
At least I won't accidentally close or open tabs now, but having to
whack the Backspace key many times instead of pressing Ctrl-W, or hold
down the Backspace key instead of pressing Ctrl-U, is obnoxious.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Hi Greg,

Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org> writes:

On Mon, Jan 12, 2026 at 09:23:53 +0100, Loris Bennett wrote:

2. If I close a tab via the keyboard shortcut 'Ctrl-w', this works but not if
the page on the tab contains a text field.

What matters is whether the application's focus is currently inside that
text field. When you're focused on the text field, the cursor should be visible (and possibly blinking), and Ctrl-W will act as an emacs editing command. Specifically, it means "delete the word before the cursor".

If focus is NOT inside the text field, then Ctrl-W will close the tab.

Try it on https://google.com/ for example. If you click on the big
ol' text entry box in the middle of the page, you'll get editing behavior. Try typing a few words into the entry field, then press Ctrl-W and it
should delete the most recently typed word.

If you click on the vast white background outside the entry field,
then Ctrl-W will close the tab.

The same behavior used to happen in Chrome/Brave, but recent versions
of Brave broke it. Now, Ctrl-W in Brave always closes the tab, even if you're editing a text/entry, and Ctrl-U always opens a new tab with the
"page source" (except it's not the source of the page you're currently looking at), even if you're editing. I wish they'd revert this change.
I opened an issue for it on their forum, but got no response. I was
able to disable Ctrl-W and Ctrl-U entirely through preferences, but I
was unable to find any way to restore their context-sensitive behavior.
At least I won't accidentally close or open tabs now, but having to
whack the Backspace key many times instead of pressing Ctrl-W, or hold
down the Backspace key instead of pressing Ctrl-U, is obnoxious.

Thanks for the information, particularly also relating to the use of Emacs bindings. Despite being an Emacs of serval decades and having used Firefox
for a large part of that time, I had never really twigged that Firefox
supports Emacs bindings, although I'm sure I must have subconsciously used things like C-f and C-b them in the search field.

Cheers,

Loris

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