[whatwg] Browser inconsistencies in rendering <optgroup> and <option>

Wed Oct 20 11:07:39 PDT 2010

Consider the following testcase (XHTML, but an equivalent DOM can be 
constructed in HTML, of course).

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
   <body>
     aaa
     <optgroup>
       bbb
     </optgroup>
     ccc
     <option>
       ddd
     </option>
     eee
   </body>
</html>

I observe the following behaviors:

1)  Gecko makes optgroup and option blocks (and applies some
     bold/italic/font-size styles to the optgroup, at least).
2)  Presto renders the text in the <optgroup> (which it treats as an
     inline) but doesn't render the <option> at all.
3)  Webkit renders neither the <optgroup> nor the <option>
4)  Trident (IE8/9) renders like Gecko as far as styling the optgroup,
     except it makes the optgroup and option inlines, not blocks.

I have a hard time believing any of this matters for interop, but....

-Boris