Data loss by design

Step

1. Write some long bug report or whatever inside IE onto a form (textarea) or input of text type

2. Have Windows pop up a dialog which does NOT steal focus

3. Press ESC to "cancel" the dialog which did NOT steal the focus

4. Enjoy

(hint: the long bug report just disappeared and you cannot undo the ESC - whatever that is)



Two questions:

When did ESC start to delete text and why? Try create a thread here, write something in the Subject, hit ESC - boom gone and nothing you can do about it.


And why does Windows pop up these dialogs when you're in middle of writing stuff? No I'm not revealing what the dialog is, I'll let Windows usability experts figure this one out.

One question:

If you're not going to give all the information on what happenned, how do you expect anyone to be able to figure this out and actually respond to your questions?

Can't reproduce--  ESC does not delete text here.

More information would be helpful, instead of a useless "no, I'm not going to tell you what the dialog is".

edit:  I guess it would be helpful if I weren't using Firefox...  just tried IE and it does exhibit this behavior.  The solution?  Switch to Firefox

Deliberately witholding information is never good if you expect an answer, though.  Just a tip...

Are you trying to file a bug report about ESC clearing out IE's Text area? Because that would be deliciously ironic.

This is a good example of why whenever I am typing something long into a web browser form I press ctrl+a and ctrl+c at regular intervals - if this happens I can just hit ctrl+v to put it back again.

GoddersUK wrote:

This is a good example of why whenever I am typing something long into a web browser form I press ctrl+a and ctrl+c at regular intervals - if this happens I can just hit ctrl+v to put it back again.

GoddersUK wrote:

This is a good example of why whenever I am typing something long into a web browser form I press ctrl+a and ctrl+c at regular intervals - if this happens I can just hit ctrl+v to put it back again.

Ahh give the IE team a break, its a small bug on what is otherwise a perfect product..

erhhumm..

To be fair, I've clicked the damned BETA advert at the top of the page a couple of times, and every time I click "back" my work is still there.

Personally I would prefer applications to rarely steal focus in windows, but they seem to steal it for anything.. the way UAC works in Vista seems a much better solution if the application isn't in focus..


How many times can everyone here count typing an email or something to hear a 'ding' pop-up as your finishing a sentence, get a chorus of 'bad bad bad' as you are informed your key presses have no meaning in the dialog then hit enter to see the dialog flick away.. you could just see the words "Are you sure you want to format ALL your harddrives? MAANNN even the networked ones too?" Yes.

Lots of times if you hit CTRL-Z you can get the text back.  I believe IE implements the undo function.