[whatwg] Select conformance

[Matthew Paul Thomas]

On Mar 30, 2006, at 6:15 AM, Henri Sivonen wrote:
>
> Single select:
> Is it conforming for an option to be both selected and disabled? (I 
> think it shouldn't be conforming.)

Agreed. If you're not permitted to choose, the whole <select> should be 
disabled.

> And analogously: Is is conforming for a radio button to be both 
> checked and disabled if the whole set is not disabled? (This one is 
> harder to check, but anyway...)

I think it shouldn't be, for the same reason.

> Is it conforming to have no option that is marked selected? (I think 
> allowing this is safe.)

I'm pretty sure we've been through this before -- I think it shouldn't 
be, ratemy*.com thinks it should be, and there are more of those sites 
than there are of me. :-) (Why they don't just use a set of numbered 
<input type="submit">s, which would work even with JavaScript off, I 
have no idea.)

> Select multiple:
> Is it conforming for an option to be both selected and disabled? How 
> do native widgets handle this?
> ...

I don't see why not, since it wouldn't be adding any new elements or 
attributes, though it wouldn't be very commonly used.

Breakfast:
  __________________________________________
|[/] Egg                                 |A|
|[/] Bacon                               |:|
|[ ] Sausage                             |:|
|[ ] Lobster Thermidor a Crevette        |:|
|: : Baked beans (currently unavailable) |:|
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  """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

To distinguish between selected disabled and unselected disabled 
options, browsers would need to start including a checkbox for each 
item in a <select multiple>. But then they should have been doing that 
all along, both to distinguish between <select multiple> and <select 
size>, and to save people from having to know Ctrl+click/Command+click.

-- 
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/