253611 - mousing over label element in Windows XP when referring input type checkbox or radio button should highlight the inputs

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 171255

(Firefox :: General, enhancement)

Description

[Jose Fandos]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040729 Firefox/0.9.1+
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040729 Firefox/0.9.1+

In Windows XP with IE mousing over a labeled text that contains a for=""
pointing to a radio button or a checkbox input will highlight the given input.
This gives feedback to the user as to the clickability of the element. You might
want to consider this as a usability enhancement, too. 

Take a look at the http://www.mozillazine.org/ page. There is a quick poll
sidebar that contains radio buttons properly surrounded by label tags, like so:

<label for="response5" accesskey="5"><input name="vote" value="5" id="response5"
type="radio">I've constructed my own homepage, because Hixie is my god, and I
must do what he does.</label>

When mousing over the text there is no affordability towards it's clickability.
Though if you mouse over the radio button it does get highlighted, as every
radio button in IE.

Note that this behaviour is already in the chrome. At least in Windows XP
(either because the OS supports it or because Mozilla/Firefox do something in
that regard.) To test, in either Mozilla or Firefox, click on this link:

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-trunk/Firefox-win32.zip

to download the file. The window dialog that opens up contains two radio buttons
and one checkbox. In Windows XP mousing over the text for each one of those
inputs highlights the input giving a hint about being able to click over the
text to get the input changing state.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Visit http://www.mozillazine.org/
2. On the right hand side (the poll section) mouse over the text for each one of
the radio buttons.

Actual Results:  
The radio buttons don't get highlighted as you mouse over the text with label
tag pointing to the input id.

Expected Results:  
The radio buttons should highlight.

Comment 1

[Peter van der Woude [:Peter6]]

They are not highlighted, but it doesn't happen in IE6 (all packs) either
I checked the CSS and counld find the heighlight either
Another of those non-standerd M$ tricks ?

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040730
Firefox/0.9.1+

probably INVALID

Comment 2

[Jose Fandos]

(In reply to comment #1)
> They are not highlighted, but it doesn't happen in IE6 (all packs) either
> I checked the CSS and counld find the heighlight either
> Another of those non-standerd M$ tricks ?
> 
> Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040730
> Firefox/0.9.1+
> 
> probably INVALID

Please, pay attention. It says Windows XP! Not 2000!

Comment 3

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

This does happen in IE 6.  It is not the text that changes.  When you hover over
the text in the Mozillazine poll, the associated radio button gets highlighted
just as it does if you hover over the button.

Comment 4

[Raanan Barzel]

On my Windows XP Home with IE6 nothing happens when hovering over the text in
http://www.mozillazine.org/. Neither the text nor the radio buttons change.

However, the idea sounds good and may represent a real enhancement if implemented.

Comment 5

[Greg Singer]

It's an effect the Luna theme in Windows XP adds to radio buttons with labels. 
The classic theme won't do it and it isn't something Firefox specifically tries
to do with the File download dialog.

Comment 6

[atzaus]

I can confirm this. The point is if you are going to select the option by
clicking on the associated text (which firefox does) it does make sense to
higlight it as well.

Comment 7

[Oliver Saier]

I'd set severity to "enhancement" anyway.
As it is now, only radio buttons are highlighted (at least in Win XP); having
text labels highlighted/underlined as well would annoy me. On the other hand
it'd be cool to have the button highlighted when you mouse over its label IMO.

Comment 8

[Peter Hewitt]

I like this idea a lot, I really like the feature in the Luna chrome and think
it would be a cool usability enhancement for Firefox.

Comment 9

[Raanan Barzel]

Continuing my earlier comment (comment #4): While on me desktop the change is
not visible (old graphics controller? Nvidia GeForce 2 MX/MX400), on my laptop
(Win Xp Home, Intel 82815) the button does change color, so the feature is there
in Win XP Home & IE6.

I think this feature will increase the usability of Firefox.

Comment 10

[Jose Fandos]

(In reply to comment #7)
> I'd set severity to "enhancement" anyway.
> As it is now, only radio buttons are highlighted (at least in Win XP);

Checkboxes, too.

> having text labels highlighted/underlined as well would annoy me.

That's not what it does. Highlighting the text I could do with CSS if I wanted.
It's the orange inner border that appears in both radio buttons and checkboxes. 

> On the other hand it'd be cool to have the button highlighted when you mouse
> over its label IMO.

That's what happens in Luna for the whole Windows XP. I would have thought it
would include other themes. I will check and post screenshots/animated gifs.

Comment 11

[Alfonso Martinez]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 171255 ***