Text input boxes and keystroke traps

[arogge]

A new pet peeve of mine is text input boxes that have hidden keystroke traps. The most common examples are:

Enter = Send message in text input box
Apple + Left Arrow = Go back to previous page and erase text input

Enter should put the cursor on a new line, and the arrow key should move the cursor to the start of the line. These undesirable actions are inconsistent with normal expectations for Web design, and they often occur without warning. Is there a good way to force text input boxes to behave normally, as the ones on MacRumors seem to behave? Is there a good reason for this sudden increase in the use of keystroke traps?

 

[angelwatt]

The only way is to disable JavaScript on the page. I use the Firefox add-on NoScript to control all of this. I find some pages are faster and easier to use with JavaScript because it was used for the sake of it, rather than fulfilling a need. Unfortunately, there are a number of sites these days that are completely broken when you have JavaScript disabled (I'm staring at you LifeHacker).