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Bug 10909 - Clarify how fieldset's first legend should behave if the fieldset is disabled because of another disabled fieldset
Summary: Clarify how fieldset's first legend should behave if the fieldset is disabled...
Status: CLOSED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: HTML WG
Classification: Unclassified
Component: pre-LC1 HTML5 spec (editor: Ian Hickson) (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All All
: P2 enhancement
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Ian 'Hixie' Hickson
QA Contact: HTML WG Bugzilla archive list
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2010-09-30 22:09 UTC by Mounir Lamouri
Modified: 2010-10-14 09:31 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

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Description Mounir Lamouri 2010-09-30 22:09:40 UTC 
The specifications should make clear that, in the following case, the legend should be disabled:
<fieldset disabled>
  <fieldset>
    <legend></legend>
  </fieldset>
</fieldset>

The current state of the specifications might let think the readers the should be done this way but isn't clear clear.
Comment 1 Ian 'Hixie' Hickson 2010-10-05 00:41:12 UTC 
Why would the legend's form controls not be disabled? It's not the child of the first <fieldset>.
Comment 2 Mounir Lamouri 2010-10-07 10:30:57 UTC 
(In reply to comment #1)
> Why would the legend's form controls not be disabled? It's not the child of the
> first <fieldset>.

In that case too:
<fieldset disabled>
  <fieldset disabled>
    <legend><input></legend>
  </fieldset>
</fieldset>

<input> should be disabled.

The specifications requires that the first fieldset's form controls are disabled if not in its first legend so <input> will be disabled because of that. However, the second fieldset will keep <input> enabled.

So, a careful reading can let the reader think that <input> should be disabled but a clarification might be appreciated because it's hard to say if that is by chance or not.
Comment 3 Ian 'Hixie' Hickson 2010-10-12 09:34:18 UTC 
Hm, yeah, I'll make sure it's clear. Thanks for your patience.
Comment 4 Ian 'Hixie' Hickson 2010-10-14 07:40:16 UTC 
EDITOR'S RESPONSE: This is an Editor's Response to your comment. If you are satisfied with this response, please change the state of this bug to CLOSED. If you have additional information and would like the editor to reconsider, please reopen this bug. If you would like to escalate the issue to the full HTML Working Group, please add the TrackerRequest keyword to this bug, and suggest title and text for the tracker issue; or you may create a tracker issue yourself, if you are able to do so. For more details, see this document:
   http://dev.w3.org/html5/decision-policy/decision-policy.html

Status: Partially Accepted
Change Description: see diff given below
Rationale: The spec actually is pretty clear. It says that disabled will disable certain controls. Nothing says that the lack of the disabled attribute enables anything; indeed, there are many cases where that isn't the case (the simplest being the control itself being independently disabled).

I've added an example though that shows this case.
Comment 5 contributor 2010-10-14 07:40:50 UTC 
Checked in as WHATWG revision r5621.
Check-in comment: new example of nested disabled fieldsets
http://html5.org/tools/web-apps-tracker?from=5620&to=5621
Comment 6 Mounir Lamouri 2010-10-14 09:31:10 UTC 
Thanks :)