Zotero 7: The Ctrl+F shortcut in the viewers breaks previous search results

edited August 18, 2023
Steps to reproduce:
1) Open a Viewer (PDF viewer for example)
2) Open the search box to search in the document
3) Enter some text in the search box and press Enter
4) After this, it doesn't matter if you click in the file or not
5) Press Ctrl+F: the highlights of the search results disappear
6) Press again Ctrl+F: the number of search results at the bottom of the search box also disappear

I would expect the same behaviour as in Acrobat of Chrome for example: Ctrl+F should get back the focus to the text in the search box, highlighting all the text so that a new search can be made quickly, overwriting the previous search text. But it should probably not break the display of search restults from the last search.

Zotero 7.0.0-beta.36+3ef1f0992 (64-bit)
Windows 10
  • We'll improve this — thanks.
  • edited February 3, 2024
    This is much improved in version 7.0.0-beta.57. However, I am still experiencing the below behavior:

    1. Open a PDF.
    2. Press Ctrl+f and type a search pattern.
    3. Hit Esc to dismiss the search dialog. Notice that the search results are still highlighted in the document.
    4. Hit Esc again. This opens the search dialog again. Now, the search pattern is not highlighted, and the search results in the document are no longer highlighted.
    5. Hit Esc again to dismiss the search dialog. Now, hitting Esc again triggers no further actions.

    I would expect that in step 3, hitting Esc would dismiss the search dialog and stop highlighting the search results. I would also expect that hitting Esc again in Step 4 would not reopen the search dialog.

    This is with version 7.0.0-beta.57+3acef799f (64-bit) on Linux.
  • Can confirm this pattern is the same in Mac. I think the pattern in Chrome is the perfect example of how this should work in practice
  • @warwickmm A good observation. It'll be fixed in the next update.
  • Thanks martynas_b. The above issue is fixed in beta 58. However, I'm now experiencing the following:

    1. Open a PDF.
    2. Press Ctrl+f and type a search pattern.
    3. Hit Esc to dismiss the search dialog.
    4. Hit Ctrl+f again. Notice that nothing happens.
    5. Hitting the left and right arrow keys now switches tabs.

    It seems that after step 3, one must now click on the PDF page in order for any of the normal PDF reader keystrokes (Ctrl+f, arrow keys, PgUp, PgDn, etc.) to work as expected.

    This is with version 7.0.0-beta.58+2665090aa (64-bit) on Linux.
  • edited February 7, 2024
    Sorry, I think that's a separate issue so I created a new post.

    https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/111608/zotero-7-esc-focuses-tab-bar
  • edited February 7, 2024
    [Edit] See my comment in the above linked thread.
  • Using the Escape key to focus on tabs is new behavior, however, you are correct that it should first trigger the appropriate actions in the reader. We'll address this issue.
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