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Bug 28702 - Question - validity of situation when using "hidden" is not appropriate
Summary: Question - validity of situation when using "hidden" is not appropriate
Status: RESOLVED MOVED
Alias: None
Product: HTML WG
Classification: Unclassified
Component: HTML5 spec (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Hardware: PC All
: P2 normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: steve faulkner
QA Contact: HTML WG Bugzilla archive list
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2015-05-26 16:35 UTC by Sailesh Panchang
Modified: 2016-04-26 22:01 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

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Description Sailesh Panchang 2015-05-26 16:35:41 UTC
In "7.1 The hidden attribute" (W3C Recommendation 28 October 2014 ), refer to
"The  hidden  attribute must not be used to hide content that could legitimately be shown in another presentation. 
For example, it is incorrect to use hidden  to hide panels in a tabbed dialog, because the tabbed interface is merely a kind of overflow presentation — one could equally well just show all the form controls in one big page with a scrollbar". 

How is this different from the "skeletal example, the attribute is used to hide the Web game's main screen until the user logs in:"
<section id="game" hidden>
   ...
  </section>

Just as certain content cannot be made available till one logs in, it may not be possible or logical functionality-wise to display content of subsequent tabs in a tabbed dialog because there may be dependencies. 
The hidden attribute may be removed programmatically when content is to be rendered just like display:none may be changed to display:block or the like.     
Please can you clarify why it is not suitable in a tabbed dialog?
Thanks,
Sailesh Panchang
[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/editing.html#the-hidden-attribute
Comment 1 steve faulkner 2015-05-26 16:50:52 UTC
(In reply to Sailesh Panchang from comment #0)
> In "7.1 The hidden attribute" (W3C Recommendation 28 October 2014 ), refer to
> "The  hidden  attribute must not be used to hide content that could
> legitimately be shown in another presentation. 
> For example, it is incorrect to use hidden  to hide panels in a tabbed
> dialog, because the tabbed interface is merely a kind of overflow
> presentation — one could equally well just show all the form controls in one
> big page with a scrollbar". 
> 
> How is this different from the "skeletal example, the attribute is used to
> hide the Web game's main screen until the user logs in:"
> <section id="game" hidden>
>    ...
>   </section>
> 
> Just as certain content cannot be made available till one logs in, it may
> not be possible or logical functionality-wise to display content of
> subsequent tabs in a tabbed dialog because there may be dependencies. 
> The hidden attribute may be removed programmatically when content is to be
> rendered just like display:none may be changed to display:block or the like.
> 
> Please can you clarify why it is not suitable in a tabbed dialog?
> Thanks,
> Sailesh Panchang
> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/editing.html#the-hidden-attribute

Hi Sailesh, I agree with your view on use of hidden for a tabbed dialog, the concept of it not being appropriate was introduced and maintained by a form editor. I will modify the text for this in html 5.1
Comment 2 Arron Eicholz 2016-04-26 22:01:40 UTC
HTML5.1 Bugzilla Bug Triage: Moved to Github issue: https://github.com/w3c/html/issues/265

To file additional issues please use the W3C HTML5 Issue tracker: https://github.com/w3c/html/issues/new Thanks!