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Some web pages such as GMail and Reddit(with the Reddit Enhancement Suite) have useful keyboard shortcuts that I'd like to use. However, whenever I start typing on one of these pages, the first onkeypress event fires, but then the "Search for text when I start typing" search bar opens and blocks further keys.

I don't want to disable "Search for text when I start typing" as I use it on most other web pages. Is there any way to selectively disable it, or to make a keyboard shortcut/bookmarklet to toggle it?

BinarySplit
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    @Select0r: You're right, it's directly related. But I presume a solution is to be found somewhere in messing with Javascript or Firefox's chrome. A better question would probably be "How do I make my website not break with Firefox's find-as-you-type?" – BinarySplit Jan 05 '11 at 10:47

3 Answers3

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To disable this in firefox, just go to "Options->General Tab->Browsing and disable "Search for text when I start typing". More info here . This is very useful in some cases, for example when you try to play WebGL games or when using pages like Gmail or Protonmail that have their own kb shortcuts.

UPDATED to version 73.0.1- In previous versions of Firefox this is in "Tools->Options->Advanced->General Tab" or in "Preferences->General->Browsing"

Gustavo Rodríguez
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This is still an issue huh? I love this feature but It also bothers me every now and then. There are some pages that get it right. I never dug into how they do it. For instance:

  • zty.pe - JS browser typing game. Would be pretty bad if typing caused searching here. It actually captures the keys just when the game starts and NOT by default on the page.
ewerybody
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That is not Firefox or any other browser feature. To do this, you have to write server and client side code.

Catch text that user types into input, and send it using preferably AJAX to server-side script. Then server side script should look up for matches in DB (some search engine), and return possible combinations. All you have to do on client side (JS) is to show returned results in some nice way - like in google - you can use for example simple html lists, but you have to code some css to make it look properly. Also nice feature is to code JS to work on up/down keys and enter for selecting element (it should also work for mouse).

It's not very simple to do by yourself, but you have now idea how to do it. You could also google for some scripts - surely there is something :)

Good luck!

Xiniu
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    This is a Firefox feature. All it does is automatically assume that you hit ctrl+F before you start typing into any non-input part of the web page. All it does is a text search of the currently displaying web page. For instance, if my input focus wasn't in this text box and I typed "That is not Firefox" directly into the page, the "find bar" would appear and it would highlight the first few words in your answer. – BinarySplit Jan 15 '11 at 10:21