203291 - Allow sub-elements of a '-moz-user-select: none' element to be selectable

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Core :: DOM: Editor, enhancement)

Description

[Daniel Glazman (:glazou) (not active in Mozilla any more)]

This is a RFE for a new value 'text-override' for the -moz-user-select property.
Its behavior is basically equal to the behavior of the 'text' value modulo the
fact it can override a 'none' or 'all' value set on an ancestor of the element.

Comment 1

[Daniel Glazman (:glazou) (not active in Mozilla any more)]

Attachment: very simple fix #1

Comment 2

[Daniel Glazman (:glazou) (not active in Mozilla any more)]

Comment on attachment 121631 [details] [diff] [review]
very simple fix #1

mjudge, can you r=  please ?
kin,	can you sr= please ?

Comment 3

[kinmoz]

The changes look ok to me, I'm just wondering if 'text-override' is a good name
for this value? To me, this implies that it only pertains to text when this
should be allowing us to select anything under a subtree with this  value set right?

Comment 4

[mjudge]

the code looks fine.  Is there a bug or something I can look at to see why we
need this? I am not sure if its my job here to police whether we need this
change.   

Comment 5

[Erik Arvidsson]

Why not let the computed style decide this instead? I mean why would a new
property be needed. In theory it should work to just set the -moz-user-select on
an element. Right now it seems that if any ancestor has user select set to none
there is no way whatsoever to override that. This totally breaks some scenarios
and I hope that someone can change this from enhancement to normal.

Testcase coming up

Comment 6

[Erik Arvidsson]

Attachment: Test case for showing how -moz-user-select: text; is broken

Comment 7

[David Baron :dbaron: (⌚️UTC-4, no longer working on Mozilla)]

-moz-user-select is not an inherited property.

Comment 8

[Erik Arvidsson]

Ok. I've reread the working draft and it is pretty clear that user-select none
should prevent selection of any of its descendants. Fortunately this is still
just a working draft. I really think that this needs to be reconsidered and
obviously I'm not the only one that is having trouble with the current model.

If someone sets user-selectable to none on the root element inputs will not work
any more, no matter what I do. This seems like a usabily issue and I can see
scenarios where users would like to specify that text must be selectable by
providing a user style sheet.

Comment 9

[Daniel Glazman (:glazou) (not active in Mozilla any more)]

dbaron: I need to revive this patch - and actualize it - for Nvu.
mjudge had an interesting comment about the value name. Do you have a proposal
for that name? -moz-force-text ?

Comment 10

[Justin Wood (:Callek)]

Comment on attachment 121631 [details] [diff] [review]
very simple fix #1

removing [very] old review request[s], please re-request from someone if
applicable.

If you need to contact me specifically please add |Callek| to CC

Comment 11

[Peter Flynn (Oracle)]

Some kind of solution would be very nice to have for serious web applications. 
Is anyone still discussing/working on this?

If the name is the issue, how about "normal-override"?  As far as the draft CSS
spec goes---how does one get feedback to the authors, anyway?

Comment 12

[Darin Fisher]

Comment on attachment 121631 [details] [diff] [review]
very simple fix #1

dbaron: can you please give this patch a quick review.	 thx!

Comment 13

[David Baron :dbaron: (⌚️UTC-4, no longer working on Mozilla)]

An independent version of this was rolled into attachment 195300 [details] [diff] [review] on bug 307256.

Comment 14

[David Baron :dbaron: (⌚️UTC-4, no longer working on Mozilla)]

And my comments in bug 307256 comment 22 mostly apply here as well.

Comment 15

[Xavier]

In case anyone bumps into this bug, here is the result of all successive proposed patches and fixes in this and other bugs...

If you need to allow selection in an element E but disable selection in one of its ascendants A, use this on the A element :
-moz-user-select : -moz-none;
(instead of just 'none').

On E, you'll be able to allow selection with : 
-moz-user-select : text;
(or whatever value you liked).

It works on FF2.

I suppose this could qualify as 'VERIFIED FIXED'...

Regards.
Thanks.
Merry Christmas.

Comment 18

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

This was fixed quite a while ago.

Comment 19

[liampmccabe]

This bug seems to have returned, see: https://jsfiddle.net/xryfjtL6/

Comment 20

[liampmccabe]

(In reply to liampmccabe from comment #19)
> This bug seems to have returned, see: https://jsfiddle.net/xryfjtL6/

Woops, sorry the above workaround worked. My bad! Have a nice day everyone.