Pressing F6 or Ctrl+L to focus on the location bar should set it to editable rather than toggling between editable and breadcrumb. If the config option 'editable location bar' is used, pressing F6 causes it to change to breadcrumb mode so I have to press F6 a second time before I can type a new location. Also pressing Esc when it has focus should not cause it to change to breadcrumb mode.
When Editable Location Bar is set, don't use F6; just just use ctrl+L to focus on it in edit mode. The issue with the Esc key is a legit bug, though. Renaming and keeping this open to track that.
I've submitted a patch for the Escape key issue: https://phabricator.kde.org/D8021
Patch rejected for reasons that made a lot of sense. I don't think we will change this. It's important for the escape key to be able to make the location bar non-editable again. If you want to keep it editable, just use the tab key to change focus, not the escape key
> Esc is the standard way to return to previous GUI states It's not returning to a previous state, it's configured not to use this state at all. It sounds like the patch was rejected but the idea behind it was not. > This patch disables Esc unconditionally, while it should only do it if > the config option is set in Dolphin's or the file dialog's preferences. > If it were done that way, I could agree to the patch. I agree, this would be ideal. Is this possible?