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The search field no longer has Alt-N and Alt-P keyboard options!

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Why on earth has this been removed?

Why on earth has this been removed?

All Replies (10)

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The labels that show the shortcut key underlined have been removed from the previous and next buttons, so it is impossible to see what those shortcut keys would be.
You can use F3 or Ctrl + G (Next) and Shift+F3 or Ctrl + Shift + G (Previous) instead.

See also this thread:

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Not sure why this was changed. Thunderbird still uses Alt+N for Find Next and Alt+P for Find Previous, as do many other applications. I get the thinking in using Ctrl+G because it is close to Ctrl+F, but this is causing problems because all of the other applications I use have implemented the previous keyboard shortcuts, so I automatically hit Alt+N and then assume nothing was found because of the change.

Is this an attempt to sync up with another keyboard shortcut schema? If so, which? If not, the original keyboard shortcuts should be returned, since they are standard in many apps and it just creates confusion and frustration having a special set of new keyboard shortcuts for this functionality that only pertains to Firefox.

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See also Help > Keyboard Shortcuts

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There's really only one way to solve this problem: Return to the old scheme.

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Hi,

The people who answer questions here, for the most part, are other Firefox users volunteering their time (like me), not Mozilla employees or Firefox developers.

If you want to leave feedback for Firefox developers, you can go to the Firefox Help menu and select Submit Feedback... or use this link. (You'll need to be on the latest version of Firefox to submit feedback). Your feedback gets collected at http://input.mozilla.org/, where a team of people read it and gather data about the most common issues.

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If you would like to restore the old keyboard shortcuts you can use this addon to configure Alt+N for Find Next and Alt+P for Find Previous as well as any other shortcuts you want to customize:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/customizable-shortcuts/

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This is not the right solution. That would be to return the old search bar, and offer the new solution as an add-on for the very few that might want it. There's no good reason to "fix" something that works. That's what Microsoft does. Don't follow their bad example.

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Hi ingeva. I agree. That addon is just a stop-gap measure until this is properly fixed. The only real solution is for Mozilla developers to return the Find Bar to its functional, glorious state of usefulness pre-Firefox 25. It is entirely possible to provide Alt+N / Alt+P and Ctrl+G / Ctrl+Shift+G keyboard shortcuts simultaneously without any conflict so everyone is happy.

I really don't comprehend the concept of dumbing things down and removing features that are perfectly functional and have become second-nature for users. The Gnome developers did this with the transition from Gnome 2 to Gnome 3 shell and lost a lot of users as a result. For example, in Gnome 3 there isn't even a button to minimize windows any more and no easy way in the GUI configuration options to get it back. There is tons of empty space at the top of the windows in Gnome 3, so why remove the freekin minimize button? Is it a dumb-things-down, minimalist fetish? The same goes for the Find Bar in Firefox.

Modified by undoIT

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Yes, I agree. Let's hope that the Mozilla people will come to their senses. In the meantime I've installed the add-on, but only as a *temporary* solution.

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Another unnecessary, utterly useless change. Much prefer the old alt-n/alt-p method as I don't find ctrl-g to be a good keybind at all.

Would also have been a swell idea to at least note somewhere in the bar what the damn hotkeys are so people don't have to start searching to find them. Mind boggling...