Re: Interaction with invisible elements

At 22:50 -0800 3/4/01, Ian Hickson wrote:

>Mozilla treats elements that are 'visibility: hidden' as if they were not
>available for user interaction because it is very bad UI to have invisible
>elements react to the user. We decided that good UI was overall a better
>aim than the few edge cases. ;-)
>
>Authors of other UAs probably did the same.

    An interesting assertion.  Why is it bad UI?  I can think of at 
least a few cases where you might want to have invisible elements 
that can react to the user's input.
    Actually, my investment in this issue is not to have invisible 
elements available for interaction (although I think that would be 
cool) so much as it is to get the specification clarified either in 
the CSS2 errata or in the appropriate module(s) of CSS3.  Just a 
single sentence is all I ask, really, which says whether or not 
invisible elements are available for interaction.  If they aren't, 
then add another sentence that defines the point at which semi-opaque 
elements become (un)available for interaction.

--
Eric Meyer
Internet Applications Manager          e-mail: emeyer@theopalgroup.com
The OPAL Group / Technical Services     voice: (216) 986-0710 ext. 21
  http://www.theopalgroup.com/             fax: (216) 986-0714

Received on Monday, 5 March 2001 08:58:18 UTC