[whatwg] Should :default apply to checkboxes, radios, and options?

[Ian Hickson]

On Fri, 30 Apr 2010, L. David Baron wrote:
>
> For a long time, Gecko has implemented the behavior that the
> :default pseudo-class matches checkboxes, radios, and options that
> are selected by default (i.e., anything that matches :checked by
> default).  I think supporting it for option elements is explicitly
> stated in the spec where :default was introduced:
>   # One example is the default submit button among a set of buttons.
>   # Another example is the default option from a popup menu.
>   # Multiple elements in a select-many group could have multiple
>   # :default elements, like a selection of pizza toppings for
>   # example. 
>     -- http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-ui/#pseudo-default
> and I think supporting it for radios and checkboxes logically
> follows from that.
> 
> However, the HTML5 spec says that :default should not apply in these
> cases:
> http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/links.html#selector-default
> 
> I don't feel particularly strongly about this one, but it seems like the 
> original intent of :default was to match both things that are the 
> "default button" and things that are "selected by default".
> 
> Was this difference with existing implementation behavior intentional?

No, that particular definition just didn't come to mind.


On Fri, 30 Apr 2010, Jonas Sicking wrote:
> 
> Out of curiosity, what is the use case for :default?

On Fri, 30 Apr 2010, L. David Baron wrote:
> 
> For buttons, it's common to present the button that's the default action 
> for a dialog (the one that submits if you hit enter in a textfield, for 
> example), with a thicker border.  (For example, in dialog boxes in 
> Windows.)
> 
> For radios/checkboxes, one might want to present the labels 
> corresponding to the current state in a different font (perhaps bold?) 
> or color so that if a user switches away from the defaults they can 
> switch back without having to remember what they changed. (I believe 
> I've seen UI that does this, although I can't think where.)

Since nobody seemed to object to this, and we already have an 
implementation, I've added it to the spec. I don't feel strongly about 
this either.

Note that the definition of :default isn't quite the same as what is 
:checked by default. For example, the first <option> here matches 
:default, even though the second is the one that matches :checked by 
default, and indeed the first can never match :checked while disabled:

   <select>
     <option disabled selected>A
     <option>B
   </select>

I did this for compat with Firefox. We could change it but it would make 
the rules somewhat more convoluted.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
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