Selecting text no longer working properly in Outlook Web App on MacOS

Sad news... as of yesterday (August 28), pressing and releasing the option key in the Outlook Mail web app (using Chrome on MacOS, no plugins/scripts running) has started to lose focus from the "compose" window. Expected behavior is nothing changes. What happens is these little black lettered "shortcut" buttons pop up:

Since June 12, emails have been blissfully bug-free. This issue with the option key is a small thing, but I hope it isn't a harbinger that the other bugs are coming back too.

Anyone else noticing this?

I am running into this same issue. This even happens when I'm holding option+shift to select a word at a time. Terrible user experience.

Possibly something may change for me soon with a restart or some update update. For now this isn't really happening to me. If I hold down Option or Option + Shift, I can still use the arrow keys to accomplish what I want. Option plus arrow keys still moves cursor to next word and Option + Shift still selects words. If I push Option and then let go without having used any arrow keys then it will trigger the shortcut options and take focus out of the email compose box.

It would be nice if there were a hotkey to bring focus back to the email compose box. My instinct is to hit the Esc key, but that doesn't do anything.

I suspect it may be happening to you both, but you've not pinned down what you're doing differently:

For me, I can safely use Option + Arrows (with or without shift) anywhere in the Editor, including the subject line and addressees.

Ian's screenshot shows text in the search bar. When I try it on a text string in there, it brings up the menu hotkeys.

If I were to guess, I'd say the fixes put in place after the original April issue have made the Editor safe to work in, and some oversight has meant the rest of the page is still a minefield.

For me, anywhere in the email web client, those hotkeys are triggered when:

• I press and release the option key
• I hold down the option key for about 2 seconds without releasing
• I continue holding down the option key for about 1 second after letting go of another button (e.g., I press option+arrow, release arrow, but continue holding down option)

In all cases, pressing the escape key removes focus from the hotkeys and returns focus to the email compose box.

Overall, this is way less inhibitive than the previous issues between April and June, but I think worth documenting as a potential bug so long as others are experiencing it (unless there are people out there who actually want this to happen when you press the option key).