Item context menu appears instead of section menu or column header menu

thebluepotato
Hi! Weird bug I've been having for a few days now. Zotero is up-to-date (7.0.9), Mac is up-to-date (15.2), did a fresh installation of Zotero and tried this on a new profile:

Whenever I right-click on an item, library, collection, the appropriate context menu appears, in the appropriate place. However, when I right-click on the item tree's column headers (i.e., to add a column), or on a section icon (to pin it, for instance), the last context menu appears (in its original location) instead of the column/section menu. For instance:
- Right-click on item
- Item menu shows below item
- Right click on section icon
- Item menu shows below item (again)
- Right-click on library
- Library menu shows below library
- Right-click on column header
- Library menu shows below library (again)

This means that I've been unable to change my column headers or pin sections... Any idea as to the cause?
  • thebluepotato
    So it seems that this commit explains part of it: https://github.com/zotero/zotero/commit/8e87aa15e73ad05c32a22b00c9ab500fb8c4ce46

    Sort options are now part of the View main menu. Makes sense, but it's a bit unexpected to right-click the columns (as I think was how it was done in the past) and see an unrelated popup appear). However, I haven't found the reason why the section pin/unpin context menu doesn't appear.
  • dstillman
    I'm not seeing this. Can you provide a screenshot and a Report ID? Does this happen in Troubleshooting Mode (Help → "Restart in Troubleshooting Mode…”)?
  • thebluepotato
    Here's a screen recording in Troubleshooting mode: https://share.cleanshot.com/qcFDbTTw

    And the corresponding reports: D917971095, 2077675019
  • thebluepotato
    Better video: https://share.cleanshot.com/X5HGvNSq
  • thebluepotato
    Oh, relevant discovery: this only happens when I "two finger click" on the trackpad, not when I ctrl+click. Also, when using ctrl+click, the menu appears more quickly and exactly at the click location, whereas when I "two finger click", it appears achored to the element.
  • dstillman
    Oh, this is on the macOS 15.2 beta? Can you reproduce this on a 15.1 machine?
  • dstillman
    I suspect the relevant commit here is https://github.com/zotero/zotero/commit/23f9ebcd17b773b7389171ea9c2b1332288d9b01 and that 15.2 is causing this code to be triggered for you for a two-finger click. We'll try to test on the 15.2 beta.
  • thebluepotato
    I updated to the 15.2 beta yesterday directly from the 15.1 beta and I’m 99% sure I’ve been having this issue for at least a week now so it might still happen on 15.1 too. I currently don’t have access to a 15.1 machine anymore so I can’t confirm. However, I’ll look into the code and see if something changed between 15.1 and 15.2.
  • dstillman
    edited 14 days ago
    It's not a general problem on 15.1. But the anchoring behavior you're seeing is very likely from the commit I linked to, which was added in 7.0.8 on October 18.

    It shouldn't really matter, but is this a MacBook or a Magic Trackpad?
  • thebluepotato
    MacBook. I've tested it out a bit more and Ctrl+clicking is exactly the behaviour I expect: snappy, context menu also for section icons _and_ column headers. However, I assume most people on a MacBook (or using a Mac with any trackpad for that matter) primarily use the two-finger method for context menus. Do you have a source for this "new system menu" behaviour in Sequoia? Because I tried with Ctrl+Enter and indeed, that's the menu that appears and there's no way to tab-select the section icons.
  • dstillman
    Are you running any third-party software that might affect the trackpad?

    Note that it's probably not the "last" context menu that's appearing — it's just triggering the context menu on the selected tree row. If you just left-click a collection or item and then two-finger tap on something else, you'll likely see the same behavior.
  • thebluepotato
    Indeed, it's not the last menu, but the one corresponding to the focussed item. In short, in Zotero at least, secondary clicks triggered with two fingers are captured as the "Ctrl+Enter" system-wide shortcut, whereas Ctrl+clicking triggers the contextmenu event on the target. I tried this in Safari, Firefox and Mail, and all apps correctly distinguish the two: a two-finger secondary click or a ctrl+click have the same behavior (context menu at the mouse position) and ctrl+enter pulls up the context menu for the focussed item. I don't have any third-party keyboard or mouse software, so I'm guessing this is specific to Zotero.

    I think the issue stems from this line: https://github.com/zotero/zotero/commit/23f9ebcd17b773b7389171ea9c2b1332288d9b01#diff-0ec361a3df0e76da5d502b97d1a3e1a08f19332ae39197b7deb23cce0512d77fR51

    The code captures all contextmenu events, except those that match (NOT secondaryButton OR NOT buttons=0 OR ctrlKey pressed). In other words, it only considers secondary clicks that are triggered with Ctrl. For reference, here are the MouseEvent properties I was able to log in Safari:

    - Two-finger click: contextmenu which=3 button=2 buttons=0 ctrlKey=false
    - Ctrl+click: contextmenu which=1 button=0 buttons=1 (but also sometimes 0??) ctrlKey=true
    - Ctrl+Enter shortcut: contextmenu which=3 button=2 buttons=0 ctrlKey=false (!)

    As you can see, a Ctrl+Enter context menu triggers the exact same "signature" as the two finger click. The only difference is that clientX/Y are both set to 1 in my testing when using Ctrl+Enter...

    TL/DR; assuming the whole event retarget is necessary (haven't tested it before 7.0.8), the logic test that excludes events from this retarget should not only filter out ctrl+click events but also regular secondary clicks (which is what the two finger click does here).
  • enozkan
    I see this on a MacBook Pro trackpad using Sequoia 15.1.

    I only see it if I two-finger tap, not two-finger click.

    Two-finger tap is supposed to bring up options/context menus for *selected* items (as far as I understand), so while this is a bit unexpected and annoying, I am not sure if it is entirely the wrong behavior.
  • dstillman
    edited 12 days ago
    Oh, two-finger tap, not click. (@thebluepotato said "two finger click", and I forgot that you can do a two-finger tap when "Tap to click" is enabled.) I can reproduce with a two-finger tap. Thanks @enozkan for clarifying.

    But yes, the behavior is wrong — you can see in, say, Finder that a two-finger tap behaves the same as a two-finger click and shows the context menu at the cursor position, not for the selected file.

    In any case, we've already fixed this for the next beta (because I accidentally wrote down "tap" when creating a ticket and another developer reproduced it).
  • thebluepotato
    Sorry for the lack of clarity, I never ever ever « click » on my trackpad, just tappity tap tap. Glad it’ll be fixed and thanks for investigating!
  • dstillman
    This is fixed in the latest beta.
  • thebluepotato
    Works perfectly now! Issue resolved
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