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It's been suggested that even on form controls where you can't normally interact programmatically with the selection (e.g. type=number), it would be useful to have a way to tell the browser to select everything so that when the user starts entering a value, it deletes the previous value. This could be done in a way that is separate from the rest of the selection API, e.g. no firing 'select' events, no selectionStart API, etc. Any vendors interested in supporting that? ack Sampo Niskanen from bug 24796.
+1. This sounds useful, and implementation cost is low.
yup
Ok, I'll make select() apply to the following fields: Text, Search (already applies) URL, Telephone (already applies) E-mail Password (already applies) Date and Time, Date, Month, Week, Time Local Date and Time Number Colour File Upload For browsers where it makes no sense (e.g. if "Colour" is a colour well, or if "Week" is only a calendar widget) then it'll just do nothing (not throw, like now).
Awesome. I'm very glad this got reverted. It isn't quite the full suite of selection properties/methods we need back but it is a start. Thanks for reconsidering.
Checked in as WHATWG revision r8785. Check-in comment: Add the select() method to input types that might have text fields but where the script-exposed value is unlikely to exactly match the user-exposed value, so that the selection can be switched on, even if it can't be carefully managed. https://html5.org/tools/web-apps-tracker?from=8784&to=8785
Contrary to below changes, select() API seem to not throw error in all browsers. Found following behavior: 1. Chrome, Firefox. IE and Opera do not throw error for select() on all input type (including non text fields, radio, checkbox, button). It does throw error for selection API. --> data:text/html,<input type=radio value='1' id=radio><script> try { document.getElementById('radio').select();} catch(e) {console.log(e); }</script> 2. On all browsers select() function, selects all text in input type email. --> data:text/html,<input type=email value='ex@example.com' id=email> <script> try { document.getElementById('email').select();} catch(e) { console.log(e);}</script> 3. In Opera and Firefox, selection API() works for input type email. --> data:text/html,<input type=email value='ex@example.com' id=email> <script> try { document.getElementById('email').select(); console.log(document.getElementById('email').selectionEnd);} catch(e) { console.log(e);}</script> 4. In Chrome and Opera select(), select all number in input type number. --> data:text/html,<input type=number value=2000 id=number> <script> try { document.getElementById('number').select();} catch(e) { console.log(e);}</script> 5. In Opera, selection API works for input type number. --> data:text/html,<input type=number value=2000 id=number> <script> try { document.getElementById('number').select(); console.log(document.getElementById('number').selectionEnd);} catch(e) { console.log(e);}</script> 6. Firefox allows using selection API on input type date. While Opera and Chrome throws exception. --> data:text/html,<input type=date value="2000-10-10" id=date> <script> try { document.getElementById('date').select(); console.log(document.getElementById('date').selectionEnd);} catch(e) { console.log(e);}</script> 7. Only Chrome, selects radio, checkbox, file and color element. None of the other browsers does.