# Woah - How did I just do this?! (Firefox in WinXP) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 25, 2006, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woah-how-did-i-just-do-this-firefox-in-winxp/365908 "2006-07-25T01:54:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woah-how-did-i-just-do-this-firefox-in-winxp/365908/1 "2006-07-25T01:54:02Z")
I was reading [this Straight Dope article](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/000128.html) and had my mouse hovering over the third paragraph while I played with the shift key and the left mouse button, alternating between pressing one and the other, etc., pretty much absentmindedly. Suddenly, [the third paragraph disappeared](http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y198/disbomber/disappear.png)! Holy crap! How did I do that? It’s kind of cool, but…how do I get the text back after I do that? ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woah-how-did-i-just-do-this-firefox-in-winxp/365908/2 "2006-07-25T01:55:09Z")
I just tried holding shift while double-clicking and apparently that’s what does it. Wipes out the paragraph you’re clicking on. Crazy! Carry on. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woah-how-did-i-just-do-this-firefox-in-winxp/365908/3 "2006-07-25T01:56:57Z")
Actually, don’t carry on. Sorry to triple post, but how do you get an individual paragraph back? ---
**Author:** ![Tabby\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Tabby\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabby_Cat)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woah-how-did-i-just-do-this-firefox-in-winxp/365908/4 "2006-07-25T01:59:30Z")
> [@fetus](#): > > Actually, don’t carry on. Sorry to triple post, but how do you get an individual paragraph back? That’s cool… but… why the hell do we have this “feature”?! ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woah-how-did-i-just-do-this-firefox-in-winxp/365908/5 "2006-07-25T02:06:17Z")
Probably for when you’re reading the Dope at work and somebody says something awful in big red letters, methinks. ---
**Author:** ![KlondikeGeoff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3e96dc/32.png) [@KlondikeGeoff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KlondikeGeoff)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woah-how-did-i-just-do-this-firefox-in-winxp/365908/6 "2006-07-25T02:10:56Z")
Man that’s weird. I found out if you click on the “Reload Current Page” icon on top, it all comes back. So, in the Pit if you really get angry at some idiot, you can wipe out his message. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![KGS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/90ced4/32.png) [@KGS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KGS)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woah-how-did-i-just-do-this-firefox-in-winxp/365908/7 "2006-07-25T02:13:37Z")
> [@fetus](#): > > I just tried holding shift while double-clicking and apparently that’s what does it. Wipes out the paragraph you’re clicking on. Crazy! I can’t get it to work. I feel left out. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woah-how-did-i-just-do-this-firefox-in-winxp/365908/8 "2006-07-25T02:45:07Z")
> [@KGS](#): > > I can’t get it to work. I feel left out. ☹ Me either. Firefox 1.0.7 and Win XP Pro SP-1. ---
**Author:** ![Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Throatwarbler_Mangrove)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woah-how-did-i-just-do-this-firefox-in-winxp/365908/9 "2006-07-25T02:53:25Z")
Hmm, I can’t get that effect either, BUT what I do get is that when I hold down shift and double click on one of the quote boxes in the post, the outline of the quotebox is selected and I’ve just copied the entire text in the quotebox to the clipboard! WOW! ---
**Author:** ![KlondikeGeoff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3e96dc/32.png) [@KlondikeGeoff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KlondikeGeoff)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woah-how-did-i-just-do-this-firefox-in-winxp/365908/10 "2006-07-25T02:56:59Z")
OK, now it’s getting really goofy. As others found it did not work, I tried it again. Now it does not work, it just highlights everything. :eek: Firefox 1.5.04, XP SP2 ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woah-how-did-i-just-do-this-firefox-in-winxp/365908/11 "2006-07-25T03:14:58Z")
You have the Adblock extension installed. Look at the word “Adblock” in the bottom right of your Firefox window, and there will be a solid or dashed underline under it. Pressing Ctrl+Shift+K will cycle it through dashed -\> solid -\> none. When either the solid or dashed underline is there, shift-double-clicking will cause the element you clicked on to disappear. I guess this is for annoying advertisements you don’t want to block completely. When the solid underline is there, shift-clicking will be intercepted by Adblock too, so you can do the shift-double-click without activating a button or link. Unfortunately this breaks things like Gmail’s ability to select a range of messages. When the underline is gone, shift-clicking does nothing unusual. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woah-how-did-i-just-do-this-firefox-in-winxp/365908/12 "2006-07-25T07:22:22Z")
Ah, of course! My old friend Adblock. How could I forget? Looks like another extension took Ctrl-Shift-K, though. But thanks for the tip! ---
**Author:** ![hammos1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ba8739/32.png) [@hammos1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hammos1)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woah-how-did-i-just-do-this-firefox-in-winxp/365908/13 "2006-07-25T10:53:35Z")
> [@KlondikeGeoff](#): > > OK, now it’s getting really goofy. As others found it did not work, I tried it again. Now it does not work, it just highlights everything. That’s because when you hold down shift and \*\*single \*\*click, Firefox selects (highlights) the text between the last position you clicked and the current click position. Internet Explorer does this as well, as does Microsoft Word and probably every other word processing program. It’s more obvious what’s happening with MS Word because you can see the cursor that marks the last position clicked. Firefox and IE don’t have a visible cursor but the text selection process still works as if there is one. Try first single clicking on the paragraph you want to disappear, and then hold down shift and double click. ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woah-how-did-i-just-do-this-firefox-in-winxp/365908/14 "2006-07-25T11:34:31Z")
I was just about ready to get excited about this quick and easy way to adblock a single annoying banner until I discovered that the shift+double-click actually _clicks_ the offending object before making it vanish. I was immediately rewarded by a reprimand from our corporate firewall for attempting to go to a site that had “sexual materials”. Great. Maybe there’s some trick to it? ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woah-how-did-i-just-do-this-firefox-in-winxp/365908/15 "2006-07-25T11:35:35Z")
Incidentally, the word whoa is spelled, uh, “whoa.” Carry on. –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woah-how-did-i-just-do-this-firefox-in-winxp/365908/16 "2006-07-25T13:24:25Z")
> [@hammos1](#): > > That’s because when you hold down shift and \*\*single \*\*click, Firefox selects (highlights) the text between the last position you clicked and the current click position… > Try first single clicking on the paragraph you want to disappear, and then hold down shift and double click. Very cool, no more dragin’ to highlight. T’anks **hammos1**! CMC fnord! ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woah-how-did-i-just-do-this-firefox-in-winxp/365908/17 "2006-07-25T18:40:42Z")
> [@minor7flat5](#): > > I was just about ready to get excited about this quick and easy way to adblock a single annoying banner until I discovered that the shift+double-click actually _clicks_ the offending object before making it vanish. Press Ctrl+Shift+K until Adblock’s underline is solid, and shift-clicks won’t activate the object you click on. ---
**Author:** ![spingears](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@spingears](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spingears)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woah-how-did-i-just-do-this-firefox-in-winxp/365908/18 "2006-07-25T18:43:17Z")
> [@fetus](#): > > Actually, don’t carry on. Sorry to triple post, but how do you get an individual paragraph back? Did you try to reload? ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woah-how-did-i-just-do-this-firefox-in-winxp/365908/19 "2006-07-25T18:56:57Z")
> [@minor7flat5](#): > > I was just about ready to get excited about this quick and easy way to adblock a single annoying banner until I discovered that the shift+double-click actually _clicks_ the offending object before making it vanish. > > I was immediately rewarded by a reprimand from our corporate firewall for attempting to go to a site that had “sexual materials”. Great. > > Maybe there’s some trick to it? It’s been noted upthread that Ctrl-Shift-K switches the dotted line under the word Adblock to a solid line and then you can use the feature without double-clicking, but you have to make sure to switch it back because it messes up some websites like Gmail. ---
**Author:** ![spingears](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@spingears](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spingears)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woah-how-did-i-just-do-this-firefox-in-winxp/365908/20 "2006-07-25T19:55:59Z")
> [@fetus](#): > > How did I do that? It’s kind of cool, but…how do I get the text back after I do that? Simple. Hit the browser RELOAD button! [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woah-how-did-i-just-do-this-firefox-in-winxp/365908.md?page=2)