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

[Jonas Sicking]

On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 1:44 PM, L. David Baron <dbaron at dbaron.org> wrote:
> On Friday 2010-04-30 13:43 -0700, L. David Baron wrote:
>> On Friday 2010-04-30 13:05 -0700, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
>> > On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 12:12 PM, L. David Baron <dbaron at dbaron.org> 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?
>> >
>> > By "selected by default", do you mean things that had @checked or
>> > @selected on page load?
>>
>> Not quite... just things that have @checked or @selected in the
>> markup.
>
> Er, markup wasn't the right word.
>
> Just things that have @checked or @selected.

Out of curiosity, what is the use case for :default?

/ Jonas