68568 - Onclick event handler on <A> tag not activated by the return key

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Core :: DOM: Events, defect)

Description

[Helmut Leininger]

From Bugzilla Helper:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; 0.8) Gecko/20010211
BuildID:    2001021108

The homepage contains a login form. The login data can only be sent by mouse,
not by the keyboard.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
http://www.bankaustria.com
type something into Verfüger and PIN
hit TAB to get the marquee around login
hit RETURN

Actual Results:  nothing happens

Expected Results:  Forms data should be transmitted (as in IE 5, Netscape 4.76)

happens also in Windows 98
code extract: 
 <tr align = "center">
<td class = "startlogin" colspan = "2">
<a href = "#" onclick="return submitLoginData();"
onMouseOver="status='Login';return true;" onMouseOut="status='';return
true;"><font color = "FF0000">Login</font></a>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
      <a href = "#" onclick="join();" onMouseOver="status='Beitreten';return
true;" onMouseOut="status='';return true;"><font color =
"FF0000">Beitreten</font></a></td>
</tr>

Comment 1

[Robert Kaiser]

Setting this to OS=all because I'm seeing this on Linux, too (build 2001-02-11-09).
it seems we don't handle the onClick when pressing the 'enter' key. We usually
follow links with keyboard navigation this way (common links where we just have
to load the href="" URL). Probably we should follow onClick, too.
Not sure if this is right component because of that... I think this is not
really a from submission, but a keyboard navigation bug.

Comment 2

[Brian Haskin (Janzert)]

Confirming this with
user agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; 0.8) Gecko/20010210
build: 2001021008

This might be a duplicate of bug 67948. 67948 is dealing with a submit button,
but both bugs have the onMouseOver returning true in common.

Comment 3

[Vladimir Ermakov]

This has nothing to do with form submition.

In Nav 4.x and IE it seems that hitting enter activates the onclick event 
handler. Netscape 6 doesnt. Moving to event handling. Changing summary.

Comment 4

[Brian Haskin (Janzert)]

Yes, sorry for the confusion with 67948. I'm submitting a test case below that
shows the onclick is not handled by pressing enter instead the href of the link
is followed.

Comment 5

[Brian Haskin (Janzert)]

Attachment: Test case with onclick link

Comment 6

[rods (gone)]

The <A> issues are core layout - reassigning

Comment 7

[Marc Attinasi]

The problem seems to be in nsGenericHTMLElement::HandleDOMEventForAnchors where
it purposefully handles the Enter the same as a click (see comment '//Click or
return Key'). I believe that the code in nsGenericHTMLElement::HandleDOMEvent
needs to change to fire the onClick hander for <enter> too, but then there needs
to be some feedback to HandleDOMEventForAnchors
 to tell it NOT to follow the link.

I see jst's name all over this code, so sending it his way (I have no clue about
these event handling bubbling/capturing/retargeting issues). CC'ing self in
hopes of obtaining a clue.

Comment 8

[Johnny Stenback (:jst)]

Reassigning to the owner of the DOM event code.

Comment 9

[joki (gone)]

Probably a relatively easy fix.  Assigning to 0.9.1, though I hate to say it may 
get pushed out of that. 

Comment 10

[joki (gone)]

Attachment: Proposed patch

Comment 11

[Johnny Stenback (:jst)]

Around line 1160, there's an unnecessary if statement:

+          if (aEvent->message == NS_MOUSE_LEFT_CLICK) {

Right? We're inside a case NS_MOUSE_LEFT_CLICK: so there's no need to check this
any more.

Remove that check and you have sr=jst

Comment 12

[Blake Ross]

I guess it's good to fix this for the critical (form submission) example given, 
but it still seems strange to me; onclick by definition is a mouse-only event.

Comment 13

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Just because a bunch of non-accessibility-savvy LiveScript inventors decided to 
call it `onClick' (:-) doesn't mean it shouldn't also apply to trackballs. Or 
keyboards. Or speech interfaces. Or ...

In other words, this is an accessibility issue. Absolutely you should be able 
to trigger onClick with the keyboard.

Comment 14

[timeless]

Does W3 dictate the meaning of onclick [for DOM]?

Comment 15

[saari (gone)]

r=saari for backward compatiblity

Comment 16

[joki (gone)]

Fixed

Comment 17

[Vladimir Ermakov]

verifying on build 2001-05-04-04-trunk windows 98