FFS Firebug Developers
So there I was, minding my own business, writing up a post for my new blog when, all of a sudden, the Control+Shift+Arrow [text selection] keyboard shortcuts stopped working in the CKEditor's WYSIWYG editor control. These shortcuts are second nature to me and having them suddenly stop functioning is super disconcerting.
After some Googling, I discovered the problem: Firebug! (Disclaimer: I love Firebug: a Firefox add-on for diagnosing and developing client-side script, CSS, HTML, and whatnot. I use it constantly while developing and it saves me lots of time.) However, the Firebug developers made an unfortunate choice for the default keyboard shortcuts for the "Go Back" and "Go Forward" commands: "Control+Shift+Left Arrow" and "Control+Shift+Right Arrow", respectively! Why would presumably talented and observant developers decide to usurp these ubiquitous text selection keyboard shortcuts for such limited use? The mind, it boggles.
Anyway, there's a simple workaround: open up the Firebug window, click on what I can only assume is a picture of a cockroach (upper-left corner), select "Customize Shortcuts" and change the default values of "Go Back" and "Go Forward" to something different (I used Ctrl+numpad4 and Ctrl+numpad6 because those don't interfere with anything, s'far as I can tell). Click OK, restart Firefox (SRSLY? FINE.) and the keyboard shortcuts for text selection will be back to normal.