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Bug 11343 - Browsers allow *any* element to match :active between a mousedown on it and the subsequent mouseup. The definition of :active should change to match this behavior.
Summary: Browsers allow *any* element to match :active between a mousedown on it and t...
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: HTML WG
Classification: Unclassified
Component: LC1 HTML5 spec (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Hardware: Other other
: P3 normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Ian 'Hixie' Hickson
QA Contact: HTML WG Bugzilla archive list
URL: http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/...
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
: 11344 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2010-11-19 02:15 UTC by contributor
Modified: 2011-08-04 05:02 UTC (History)
8 users (show)

See Also:

Attachments

Description contributor 2010-11-19 02:15:33 UTC 
Specification: http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/complete/links.html
Section: http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#pseudo-classes

Comment:
Browsers allow *any* element to match :active between a mousedown on it and
the subsequent mouseup.  The definition of :active should change to match this
behavior.

Posted from: 216.239.45.4
Comment 1 Tab Atkins Jr. 2010-11-19 02:22:45 UTC 
Test case illustrating the behavior:

data:text/html,<!doctype html><style>*:active { color: red; }</style><div>foo<br>bar</div>

The <div> is not on the list of explicit elements with special :active behavior, nor is it "specially focusable", but it will still turn red when you click on it.
Comment 2 Michael[tm] Smith 2010-11-19 03:52:57 UTC 
*** Bug 11344 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 3 fantasai 2010-11-19 08:11:08 UTC 
FWIW, it's called :active, not :onmousedown. I disagree with this change unless it's a significant web-compat issue.

(Note also that any pages relying on this behavior are not keyboard accessible, since the <div> under question is not focusable.)
Comment 4 Ian 'Hixie' Hickson 2010-12-31 07:10:05 UTC 
See also: http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/whatwg-whatwg.org/2010-December/thread.html#29530

Unless browsers change, the spec is going to match the general direction of implementations.
Comment 5 Ian 'Hixie' Hickson 2011-02-12 00:33:08 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: Accepted
Change Description: see diff given below
Rationale: Concurred with reporter's comments.

Would be nice if Selectors would match reality on this too. In the meantime, I've added a "willful violation" note here and specced what Tab suggests.
Comment 6 contributor 2011-02-12 00:33:30 UTC 
Checked in as WHATWG revision r5881.
Check-in comment: Define that :active works between mousedown and mouseup.
http://html5.org/tools/web-apps-tracker?from=5880&to=5881
Comment 7 Michael[tm] Smith 2011-08-04 05:02:25 UTC 
mass-moved component to LC1