[whatwg] Making elements match the :active pseudoclass

[Tab Atkins Jr.]

On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 2:06 PM, fantasai <fantasai.lists at inkedblade.net> wrote:
> On 12/28/2010 04:27 PM, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
>> * IE8 and IE9 make only the target of the click :active
>
> So
> http://software.hixie.ch/utilities/js/live-dom-viewer/?%3C!DOCTYPE%20html%3E%0A%3Cstyle%3E%0Aa%3Aactive%20{%20background%3A%20green%3B%20}%0Aa%20{%20background%3A%20red%3B%20color%3A%20white%3B%20}%0A%3C%2Fstyle%3E%0A%3Ca%20href%3D%22%22%3E%3Cspan%3EClick%20to%20make%20green.%3C%2Fspan%3E%3C%2Fa%3E%0A
>
> does not turn green? That seems pretty broken.

Yes (it stays red), and I agree that it's totally broken.


> FWIW, I think the behavior currently in the spec makes the most sense.
> If the element has no behavior to activate, it doesn't make sense to
> me for the element to ever match :active. And if there is behavior to
> activate, it should be keyboard-activateable as well, not just mouse-
> clickable.
>
> I'm also interested to know whether there's a web-compat issue here or
> just a bug-compat issue, and what the implementers think.

I know that I've written pages in the past which implement button-like
things with non-interactive elements.  This wasn't a great idea, as
it's inaccessible for keyboard users, but I don't think I'm alone in
making this mistake.  (It was for some intranet apps for my previous
employer, so at least it's not exposed to the public.)

~TJ