site doesn't work with firefox
Apparently Mozilla doesn’t work very well with Firefox either. I once again had to create another account (which appears to have been associated with all my previous Firefox accounts since it displays a list of questions I have asked in the past.) To create the new account I had to request a “verification code” four times as each time the Firefox application said the code was invalid or expired. It was always the same six digits. Finally I copied it from the e-mail and pasted it into the entry form rather than keying those six digits in directly. Then it was accepted. Anyway, on to the purpose of this inquiry:
Unless only a few words are involved, I use my word processor to create anything I want to post on-line, such as this inquiry. This allows me to write something that another person might be able to understand. I then do copy and paste to the on-line site.
Mostly this works without any problems. On a couple of sites, all the word processor formatting controls, which are not seen in the word processor, appear as part of the pasted entry, rendering it useless. In these cases I first paste into Windows Notepad, then copy from Notepad to the on-line application.
In one case neither method worked for an on-line query. The error message said that I had entered unacceptable special characters. An attempt to key directly into their screen also failed with exactly the same error message. I contacted their technical support via telephone and was told their site does not function with Firefox.
Just now I just gave up trying to use “live chat” at a U.S. government agency site. What I see on the monitor, in the on-line application, is the text I pasted there. The on-line application says I have entered some unacceptable special characters, none of which I have used. The symptoms are exactly like what I described in the preceding paragraph.
I did not pursue it further. I definitely did not want to try and re-key everything directly into the on-line application just to find out if it could work that way or if it is a “we don’t like Firefox” site.
Is it true that simple text entries entered via Firefox cannot be processed correctly while the same thing entered through Microsoft or Google browsers does work?
Is there any way to assure that special characters I do not type cannot become part of the text (as I thought was true of anything in Windows Notepad)?
Is there any work-around while still using Firefox?
All Replies (5)
What text editor do you use ?
It is usually best to use a plain text editor and not an application like Word that adds a lot of formatting code including style sheets if you paste in an HTML capable rich text area. In such a case you can use "Ctrl+Shift+V" to paste unformatted plain text.
Each site has its own validation rules. For example, I use some government sites that do not accept curly apostrophes and quotation marks, which passing through Notepad or pasting as plain text do not cleanse. But you may be able to prevent your word processor from autocorrecting ' to ’ and " to “ or ” with a setting (such as in MS Word). Similar issue with word processors changing - or -- to – or — (depending on its autocorrect rules). These are all perfectly fine characters, but they are not standard keyboard characters, which matters to some systems.
More generally, you could look at an add-on like one of the following to save data in forms as you type in case an online form is particularly annoying about pasted content:
- https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/form-history-control/
- https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/textarea-cache/
(No particular recommendation, I generally live dangerously on the web and try to remember not to navigate away from the page and lose my content.)
The "Ctrl+Shift+V" function looks to be quite useful. I've used it for a very long time in WordPerfect, where its function is slightly different but did not know it was actually a Window's command. Whether or not it will be useful on sites that tell me I'm adding special characters, even copying from Notepad, remains to be seen as my use of those sites is quite infrequent so far.
The"best to use a plain text editor" would completely defeat my purpose in using the word processor but an unconditional ability to transfer only the desired text out, if that is what Ctrl+Shift+V really does, makes the problem moot.
While add-ons that save things might have utility, I consider it much more important that nothing is saved when I'm done.
Good day,
I am contacing You regarding the customer support request You have posted recently. May You provide us with any further information about the text editor that has been used to start the programme?
Sincerely,
Mozilla Customer Support Team
I can only interpret “text editor” as meaning my word process, which I already identified as WordPerfect. I have no idea what kind of further information may be desired but I will attempt to be forthcoming to more specific questions.
The information provided about Ctrl+Shift+V so far looks to be useful. It will, hopefully, let me skip the step of first copying to Notepad to assure the formatting controls are not copied to the web site entry window. I have no idea about the complaints of “special characters” supposedly being placed there on a few web sites. I can never see anything, other than the error message, to indicate there are special characters present.
As far as “site does not work with Firefox” goes, I can’t guess. One site that had a Firefox problem told me that the issue was being addressed. A few days later the problem was gone. A couple of other sites made no such projection.