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There isn't a glossary term in the HTML spec, just this text in 3.4.1.7 Interactive content: "Activation behaviors can refer to the click and DOMActivate events that were fired by the steps above leading up to this point." http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/WD-html5-20090212/dom.html#interactive-content-0
Add to glossary
The suggested definition derived from the HTML 5 WD didn't make sense out of context. Found this one in the DOM 3 events specification. Incorporated into the glossary. The action taken when an event, typically initiated by users through an input device, causes an element to fulfill a defined role. The role may be defined for that element by the host language, or by author-defined variables, or both. The role for any given element may be a generic action, or may be unique to that element. For example, the activation behavior of an HTML or SVG <a> element shall be to cause the user agent to traverse the link specified in the href attribute, with the further optional parameter of specifying the browsing context for the traversal (such as the current window or tab, a named window, or a new window); the activation behavior of an HTML <input> element with the type attribute value submit shall be to send the values of the form elements to an author-defined IRI by the author-defined HTTP method.