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Blue Tear Drops

  • 11 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 5 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

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What are the blue tear drops that randomly surround text? These appeared after a recent update; how to I remove this "feature"? Thanks.

What are the blue tear drops that randomly surround text? These appeared after a recent update; how to I remove this "feature"? Thanks.

All Replies (11)

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Hi, can you give an example of what they look like? You can attach an image file to a reply. This article has tips on capturing screenshots: How do I create a screenshot of my problem?

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Please see the attachment.

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I don't know whether those have a name, but I think of them as "selection handles" displayed on touch displays. Is this on a tablet or convertible?

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Both of my convertibles started displaying this a couple of weeks ago. It's nothing that I believe I turned on.

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Go to about:config and set layout.accessiblecaret.enabled_on_touch = false

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Thank you; I made the changes on both of my convertibles and we'll see what happens. By the way, what is the purpose of these tear drops?

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As jscher2000 said, it's for touch mode.

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I did some testing and you can also use it with a mouse, to make it easier to adjust the selection, especial with leading white-space.


about:config =>

  • layout.accessiblecaret.enabled = true
  • layout.accessiblecaret.hide_carets_for_mouse_input = false
  • layout.accessiblecaret.height = 17.0 (36.0)
  • layout.accessiblecaret.width = 15.0 (34.0)
  • layout.accessiblecaret.margin-left = -8.0 (-18.5)
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I don't know about the phone, I really don't use it for internet searches.

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Did you check that these prefs are set to false to hide the carets ?

  • layout.accessiblecaret.enabled = false
  • layout.accessiblecaret.enabled_on_touch = false

You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar. You can click the button to "Accept the Risk and Continue".