caret browsing

[Michael Wardle <michael endbracket net>]

Hi

I've just upgraded to Epiphany 1.7.2 in Ubuntu Breezy.

For the first time, I've noticed caret browsing mode after I
accidentally clicked on a web page.

For me, this was unexpected, and made browsing the page (a long thread
on Slashdot.org) suboptimal.  It also did not help that there were
effectively now two current scroll positions, so when I tried to scroll
with the mouse after having already scrolled down some amount with the
keyboard, it jumped back upwards!  (I see this as a bug rather than a
feature.)

After Googling, I discovered there is a keyboard shortcut, F7, to exit
the caret browsing mode, but this was certainly not obvious.  I have
also recently switched to using a Microsoft Multimedia keyboard which
makes F-keys difficult to use, so I would rather any such shortcut used
some combination of Control, Alt, and Shift if necessary.  (Moving away
from F-keys seems to be a general trend in GNOME, Apple, and Microsoft
designed user interfaces.)

I would expect the Escape key to exit from such a mode if it was
initially disabled but then enabled it by clicking inside a page.  This
is a function I've come to expect the Escape key to perform in many
applications.  I also note that Escape exits from the new type-ahead
bar, and find this works very well.

Am I correct in assuming this feature is now enabled by default in
Epiphany?

Would it be practical to cause the Escape key to exit from caret
browsing mode?  Are there any other ways we could easily exit it?