[whatwg] Inert nodes and element.click()

Matt Falkenhagen falken at chromium.org
Thu May 23 02:48:41 PDT 2013


I have some questions about these concepts.

1. For an inert element, what happens on element.click() or
element.dispatchEvent(new Event('click'))? The spec says an inert node is
treated as absent "for the purposes of targeting user interaction events" [1].
My interpretation is that the element receives the 'click' event as usual; the
intent is to block actual user interaction, e.g., if user the physically clicks
on the element.

2. The definition of element.click() seems ambiguous. The spec says:
  The click() method must run synthetic click activation steps on the element.
[2] There is a 6 step algorithm for "synthetic click activation steps" followed
by a separate 6 step algorithm for "when a pointing device is clicked". Below
that is a note which seems to say "the above" happens when the click() method
is called [3]. It's ambiguous what "the above" refers to and if it's the second
algorithm, that seems to contradict the click() definition text.

[1] http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/editing.html#inert-subtrees
[2] http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/editing.html#activation
[3] http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/elements.html#run-synthetic-click-activation-steps


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