[whatwg] Selection events in editable content

Mon May 9 21:05:23 PDT 2011

On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 8:55 AM, Tim Down <timdown at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> - There are two events that exist: select and selectstart
> - In IE, the selectstart event fires whenever the user starts changing
> the selection within any contenteditable element, including when the
> user chooses "Select all" from the edit or context menus. It also
> fires on the <body> element when the user starts making a selection
> anywhere in the page.
>

One question about selectstart.  WebKit currently fires whenever selection
is modified by a mouse drag, mouse click, etc... including when a collapsed
selection is to be set (caret / insertion point).  Should this be changed to
match IE?

IE only fires selectstart when a range selection is to be created. So when a
user clicks on a contenteditable area and puts a caret, it doesn't fire
selectstart. IE fires selectstart only when a user starts dragging the mouse
and extend the selection.

On the one hand, it seems strange to special-case collapsed selection.  On
the other hand, it allows IE to also fire selectstart when a user uses
keyboard (shift+arrow keys) to modify selection. Also, if we're firing
selectstart whenever a collapsed selection is set, then it seems like we
should also fire selectstart when a focused node is changed, and that
doesn't such an odd thing to do.

If we're serious about spec'ing this event, we should investigate the order
in which this event is fired in relation to other events since it's
cancelable.

- Ryosuke