270167 - PC builds have lost the outer focus outline for form buttons

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core :: Layout: Form Controls, defect)

Description

[Foteos Macrides]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.8a5) Gecko/20041105
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.8a5) Gecko/20041105

Released PC versions of the Gecko-engine browsers (Mozilla through 1.7, Firefox
through 1.0, Netscape through 7.2) have both an inner focus outline around the
textual lable in submit or reset buttons, and an outer focus outline around the
entire button.  In Mozilla nightly builds, granting focus to those buttons now
yields only the inner focus outline.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. In the test document at the above-cited URL, grant focus to the Submit or
Reset button via keyboard naviation (TAB and Shift-TAB) or mouseovers (which
invoke focus() calls in that document).
2.
3.

Actual Results:  
Only an inner focus outline appears for PC nightly builds.

Expected Results:  
Both an inner and outer focus outline should appear, as in all thus far released
PC versions, and in other PC browsers such as IE and Opera.

Retaining the outer focus outline will be important when Bug 102057 is fixed.

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Aaron, I recall you making some sort of change like this when you landed outline
stuff... did you?

Comment 2

[Aaron Leventhal]

I don't see a focus outline outside of the button in IE or in any version of
Mozilla or Firefox. We draw the dotted focus outline for buttons inside the
button. Haven't tested with Opera.

Comment 3

[Aaron Leventhal]

It's better to differentiate between "focus outline" and "default button
appearance, using a darker border". Your testcase seems to use the term "focus
outline" to mean both.

Comment 4

[Foteos Macrides]

(In reply to comment #3)
> It's better to differentiate between "focus outline" and "default button
> appearance, using a darker border". Your testcase seems to use the term "focus
> outline" to mean both.

I made your suggested changes in the testcase phraseology.  Please menatally 
make those changes in the Summary and Description.

Is is a "border" that can be influenced via CSS?

Comment 5

[Aaron Leventhal]

In both 1.8a5 and Firefox I'm seeing the darkened border style for default
buttons when a button gets focused. 

So the only bug I'm seeing is that the darkened border style for default buttons
doesn't appear when a non-button within the form has focus.

It sounds like you're never seeing the darkened border on Mozilla 1.8a5. Correct?

Very confusing if we're seeing something different. That's why I wanted to
clarify the vocabulary we're using first.

Comment 6

[Foteos Macrides]

(In reply to comment #5)
> In both 1.8a5 and Firefox I'm seeing the darkened border style for default
> buttons when a button gets focused.

I see the darkened border in the Firefox 1.0 milestone for Win32 (I don't have 
a newer Firefox), and in the Mozilla 1.7 milestone.  I do not see it in Mozilla 
1.8a5 20041105 for Win32.  What is the date of your 1.8a5?  If it is older than 
mine, it may give us a date range within which this bug appeared. Or is yours 
not for Win32?


> So the only bug I'm seeing is that the darkened border style for default
> buttons doesn't appear when a non-button within the form has focus.

That is Bug 102057 to which I referred in the Description.  It was filed over 3 
years ago, but is still not FIXED, and perhaps should be visited by whoever 
takes on this bug.


> Very confusing if we're seeing something different. That's why I wanted to
> clarify the vocabulary we're using first.

If you are using a 1.8a5 for Win32 that is newer than mine, then perhaps this 
bug got fixed within the past 11 days in conjunction with some other fix.  I'll 
get and try another nightly build tonight if that appears to be the case.

Comment 7

[Foteos Macrides]

(In reply to comment #6)
> (In reply to comment #5)
> If you are using a 1.8a5 for Win32 that is newer than mine, then perhaps this 
> bug got fixed within the past 11 days in conjunction with some other fix.  I'll 
> get and try another nightly build tonight if that appears to be the case.

Yesterday's Mozilla 1.8a5 nightly build (BuildID: 2004111704) for Windows does
put a darker border around submit and reset buttons in addition to the focus
outline around the texual labels when the buttons have focus.  So this bug did
get fixed apparently in conjunction with some patch during the past 11 days. 
You can change this bug's Status and Resolution accordingly, and it can be
reopened if the problem returns due to whatever other development activity
affects it.

Would someone kindly answer my question in Comment #4 about whether it is a
"border" that can be influenced via CSS.

Comment 8

[Aaron Leventhal]

> Would someone kindly answer my question in Comment #4 about whether it is a
> "border" that can be influenced via CSS.

I'm not the expert, but my experiments show that changing the style on a button
at all makes it lose its OS theme appearance.