UI bug: Difficult to select blank fields in Info pane

bryanp

In the info pane of the Zotero toolbar, each field that has a value will show a large blue rectangle on mouse over. This rectangle always is at least one line long and expands to multiple lines if the existing entry is long enough (e.g. long titles, abstracts, etc).

The problem is that if nothing is entered in a field, this rectangle is not shown on rollover for the main entry area of the blank field, making it difficult to select the blank field for editing. In fact the only thing that is displayed is a tiny narrow strip of blue is displayed when mousing over the narrow region between the blank field and the one above it. This strip is not displayed when mousing over the main text area for the blank field.

This is an annoyance since it makes it difficult to select blank fields for manual data entry. The obvious work around is to carefully position the mouse on the narrow strip between fields, but this makes for an awkward user experience.

Platform:
Zotero 2.0.8
Firefox 2.6.10
Mac OSX 10.6.4

ajlyon

Try disabling other extensions and Personas. This is something I have seen before, and it is not the way Zotero works under normal circumstances. Something is likely interfering with your Zotero installation.

bryanp

Thanks Ajlyon,

That did the trick. I was able to isolate the problem to the use of a custom Firefox theme (background picture for menu/search/status bars). Specifically "Majestic Hills." It's the only theme I have installed so not sure if it is a problem with this specific theme or with themes in general.

Summary: Problem was conflict with custom theme: Majestic Hills

bryanp

Update: The issue is not isolated to the Majestic Hills Theme. I have played around with a number of other themes (aka personas) and all that I have tried exhibit this same problem.

And those that apparently redefine the font (such as Shiretoko Range) cause an additional problem that the info panel fonts are also changed, often making them illegible.

I think then this becomes a request to add better support for Firefox themes in future releases. Specifically to not let the fonts be over-ridden by themes and to fix the blank field selection issue described in the initial post.

Final tidbit is that the Abstract field does not seem to be affected by the selection bug. That is even when a theme/persona is enabled and the abstract is empty, the blue selection box is full size.