Block element behaviour on <area> elements seems incorrect

[passbrains]

Adapted from ​https://www.passbrains.com/dashboard/view-ticket.php?ticket_no=ACH-186

Environment

Windows + 8 64bit + Chrome + English
ABP version 1.8.12.1432

How to reproduce

1. Install latest ABP extension on Chrome Browser
2. Load page  ​http://www.amazon.in/
3. Click on ABP icon and click on 'Block element'. Select top element in the right corner as shown in screen shot.
4. Add the filter.

This is <area> element. But issue #1868 does not exist. <area> element mentioned in issue #1868 is blocked.

Observed behaviour

Element is not blocked.

Expected behaviour

Element is blocked.

[passbrains]

1 - 03 Jun 2015 17:04:11 posted by Ross Green
Reproduced.

Selecting the position in the screenshot:

1. Suggests the first gif in a child of the #navSwmHoliday which is actually just a 1x1 image.

2. Confirming that filter then blocks that image (which doesn't "hide" that promotion as it is displayed with a different background-image deeper in the tree).

3. Attempting to Block element on that promotion now just doesn't work. No dialog appears at all which as a user is confusing.

ABP 1.8.12.1433
Chrome 43.0.2357.81 / Windows 8.1 x64

[Ross]

I confirmed this one because the behaviour seems to be/feels incorrect.

It only suggests one image, the first image, which is not necessarily the correct one. If it isn't the correct image, blocking it causes the user to not be able to select that set of elements again for some reason.

So from a user POV, they attempted to block something, it didn't do anything and now they can't try again without manually removing that filter (which if they have a lot of, will be difficult to find).

I'm not 100% sure it's related to <area> tags, but the same user reported #2115 which involves the same set of elements.

[sebastian]

When you select that <area> element the corresponding image is correctly blocked. However, this image is just transparent. So there is no visible effect. But once that transparent image has been removed, you could select the element it was covering, wouldn't element hiding being disabled on amazon.in by Acceptable Ads.

Though it might be confusing in this particular case, everything seems to work as intended. That element simply can't be blocked as long as you using Acceptable Ads. Therefore it can't be selected by the "Block element" feature.

[Ross]

Ah, I didn't know element hiding was disabled on Acceptable Ads. I agree everything seems to be working as intended in that case (also agree that it's confusing, especially that the user gets no feedback as to why it doesn't work).

[sebastian]

Note that before #1282 you could select elements that were whitelisted. However, this was even more confusing, as the added filters won't have any effect.

But in the particular case here, it is confusing because you can block the transparent image, but not the element below. However, this is rather a corner case.