browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll false
browser.urlbar.doubleClickSelectsAll false
browser.triple_click_selects_paragraph true

This seems to get at least some of the traditional behaviour back.

Single click = position cursor
Double click = select word
Triple click = select all

One thing I hate about Firefox is that if I drag-select text in the address box (and I think search box) so I can copy, delete, or modify part of it, it decides for itself that what I really was doing was dragging it — onto itself. This causes a page refresh, interrupting whatever media was playing on the page.

This violates two common-sense expectations of text boxes. First, text boxes don’t auto-select everything (or anything) when you enter them. Second, selected text in text boxes usually cannot be dragged anywhere. The second surprise isn’t so bad, because it’s a harmless convenience for those who know it’s there and want it, until it’s combined with the first and becomes extremely annoying. The key rule (or Oath, if you will) of user interface design is “do not surprise”.

This behaviour also violates a common-sense quality issue, which is answering the question “What did the user mean to do, by dragging the same URL back onto itself?”. The obvious answer is “nothing”, because that’s what the Reload button is for, and one click is easier than click-drag. Dragging the same URL onto itself is most likely to be user error (itself a result of poor design).

I’m aware that if I click TWICE in these boxes, then I get the expected behaviour, but why is Firefox the only application that I need to do this for? It shouldn’t be that way.

You might want to refer to this setting, particularly if the cursor icon is hiding exactly where you are dropping.

[kb.mozillazine.org]

That’s an excellent tip! I was actually looking for a way to disable the images when dragging and dropping tabs the other day.

[kb.mozillazine.org]

“drag elements (text, image, url, anything) cross tabs of same/different window, drop in text area of that tab”. much more useful when writing blogs.

I still don’t see one useful application of dragging and dropping you can do with a right click. View image is a right click option. Right click and save image if you want it. When would you ever need to go to [a certain word that you see].com? Probably never. And if you do, can you just type it yourself (or copy and paste) and press ctrl+enter. I bet it’s faster.

Check out the add-ons Drag De Go and/or Drag & Drop Zone for more advanced drag actions in Firefox!

Funny that you mention Drag and Drop Zone… we’re covering that extension and a few others in our CyberNotes for tomorrow.

We were actually going to mention that, but we didn’t want the list to become so overbearing that no one would want to read it. Thanks for the tip though!

Great tip! We might have to write that up in its own article. I’m sure that could save a lot of time for people.

You can also drag n drop pics to your desktop to quick save them in your computer. I first did it with a site that had right click disable and i was too tired to go to the source and find the pic. Also when XP came out with the little save as, print (n whatever else was there) button on mouse over pics i remember seeing friends using that damn button and going thru all the SAVE AS pic window and i told this trick to them and they were amaze.