296471 - Richer focus model like IE

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core :: DOM: Core & HTML, enhancement, P5)

Description

[jdperlow]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.7) Gecko/20050414 Firefox/1.0.3
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.7) Gecko/20050414 Firefox/1.0.3

IE has a richer focus/activation model than Firefox. IE differentiates between
focus and activation such that it is possible to set an element as active
without affecting whether the browser is active. These are exposed in IE with
document.activeElement, HTMLElement.setActive(), onBeforeActivate, onActivate,
onBeforeDeactivate, and onDeactivate.

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[kcoleman]

I'm working on a new product that will have a lot of usage. It works well in IE
and I'd like it to work at least as well in Mozilla. One of the things blocking
this is a richer focus model, so I'm hoping we can improve this for FF1.1

Comment 2

[Brendan Eich [:brendan]]

kcoleman, timeless didn't bother saying it, but please don't set blocking flags
to +, instead nominate by setting to ?.

This may be a dup; it may be worth doing.  Not much will happen without the
right people cc'd on it.  I'll confirm it on spec.

/be

Comment 3

[Jonas Sicking (:sicking) No longer reading bugmail consistently]

Hrm.. 'active' is a very confusing term here. In mozilla we use it to refer to
the action of activating an object, such as clicking a link or pressing a button.

Seems like IE means it to mean the currently focused node within a document.
I.e. the difference between calling focus() and setActive() is that the former
focues the document, whereas the latter doesn't.

Comment 4

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

There is no way whatever we do here could happen for 1.8 in any case, as far as
I can tell... (quite apart from the lack of a clear and thorough description of
what is being requested). 

Comment 5

[José Jeria]

Microsofts documentation on this:

activeElement Property:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/dhtml/reference/properties/activeelement.asp

setActive Method:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/dhtml/reference/methods/setactive.asp

Events (with links to the other events mentioned in comment 0):
http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/dhtml/reference/events/onbeforeactivate.asp

Comment 6

[Jesse Ruderman]

See also bug 307933, "JavaScript focus changes in background tabs are ignored instead of confined".

Comment 7

[Worcester12345]

Should this bug be blocked by

Bugzilla Bug 220900 Focus breaks, cut/copy/paste and other focus-dependent tasks broken

Comment 8

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

No

Comment 9

[Hixie (not reading bugmail)]

> IE differentiates between focus and activation such that it is possible to set 
> an element as active without affecting whether the browser is active.

It shouldn't be possible to affect whether the browser is active. So the existing methods should be enough. No?


> These are exposed in IE with document.activeElement,

I've added that to DOM5 HTML.


> HTMLElement.setActive(), onBeforeActivate, onActivate, onBeforeDeactivate, and 
> onDeactivate.

I don't really see the point of these given the restriction that focusing can't affect the browser itself.

Comment 10

[Firefox Bug Husbandry Bot]

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1472046

Move all DOM bugs that haven’t been updated in more than 3 years and has no one currently assigned to P5.

If you have questions, please contact :mdaly.

Comment 11

[Anne (:annevk)]

We have no plans to change our focus model.