Automatic text highlighting in Browse

[Nick]

I often go through cards in Browse and make new ones in Add based on stuff I’ve copied and pasted from Browse, usually from the Front of some card. Whenever I go from Add back to Browse to copy something from the Front of the next card, Anki remembers what part of the string I copied from the previous Front and automatically highlights that part of the string on the new Front.

This is highly disruptive of my workflow. It didn’t happen back when I used 2.1.40. It only started happening when I got a new computer and was forced to update to 2.1.65. (I would just revert to 2.1.40, but my computer won’t let me.)

Is there a way to disable this feature?

[ferophila]

Could you please add screenshots to illustrate your issue? Maybe it is just that you activated the feature to make fields sticky: Adding/Editing - Anki Manual

[sprvlcn]

Is this “pin” icon turned on (darker, instead of gray)?

[sprvlcn]

No, I was asking OP.

[Nick]

Here are three screenshots showing the steps:

Step 1: I copy some text from the Front of a card in Browse

Step 2: I paste it in to make a new card in Add, and I add the card

Step 3: When I select a new card in Browse, a substring is already highlighted

Sometimes the auto-highlighted text is what I would highlight anyway, but sometimes it’s not. Either way, I find it more difficult than having nothing auto-highlighted.

[Nick]

Good question. No, it’s not.

[sprvlcn]

At the top right of the Front field, you can see the < > icon. When you click it, it should open up a second input field immediately underneath the existing input field, and this new field will display HTML tags.

Does it show anything like
1 cat<span text="red" bgcolor="blue"><sup>ACC</sup></span>
or similar tags?

If so, the auto-highlighting might actually be part of the content of the field.

[Nick]

It says this:

1 cat<sup><font color="#fd8008">ACC</font></sup>

[sprvlcn]

Well, that accounts for the orange-colored superscripted ACC text, but not really the light-blue background.

When you click the Preview button, does it still show the light-blue highlighting there too?

Also, are you using any add-ons?

[Nick]

Yes, the light-blue background is not there inherently, it’s just that that substring is automatically selected because Anki somehow remembers what I selected on the previous card. Clicking anywhere in the Front field deselects that text, so it’s not a major problem, it just throws me off and isn’t like what I grew accustomed to from 2009 through earlier in 2023.

These are my add-ons:

1. Browser MaximizeHide TableEditorSidebar (not sure what this is, don’t remember why I have it)
2. Customize Keyboard Shortcuts
3. Hide editor elements by id class CSS selector (not sure what this is, don’t remember why I have it)
4. Scale images

2 and 4 in this list are very important, and I had them long before this auto-selection thing started. Maybe I’ll try deleting 1 and 3.

[ferophila]

For troubleshooting it is sufficent to deactivate the add-ons temporarily.