Re: CSS Generated content selection

On Sun, 22 Apr 2007 07:23:14 -0000, Spartanicus <mk98762@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Yahia <cyahia@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Which browser's behavior is correct? Firefox or Opera's? What is clear  
>> is
>> that for the case of using (or copy-and-pasting of content from) Web
>> documents, Opera browser does the right job.
>
> I disagree. If the CSS generated content is used appropriately by
> authors, i.e. for presentational purposes only, then only the content
> proper without presentation should be selectable in a UA.

Quotes are not presentational.

>
> And there is an inconsistency in Opera's behaviour given that it doesn't
> allow selection of the numbers of an ordered list when those numbers
> have been generated by Opera without using author supplied CSS generated
> content. This is the right behaviour.

Opera allows copying of the quotes generated around a <q/> element and not  
the bullets and numbers of the list elements; IMO, even if it's  
inconsistent, it is an acceptable behavior, compared to what Firefox does.  
Here are some quick tests I just did:

Legend
<q> = <q/>'s default generated quotes.
list = <ul/> and <ol/>'s default generated bullets and counters.
css = CSS-generated content.

/--------------------------------\
|      |  Opera 9.2 for Windows  |
|      |-------------------------|
|      | allows  | plain | style |
|      | select. | copy  | copy  |
|--------------------------------|
| <q>  |   yes   |       |  yes  |
|--------------------------------|
| list |   no    |  no   |  no   |
|--------------------------------|
| css  |   yes   |  yes  |  yes  |
\--------------------------------/

/--------------------------------\
|      |  Firefox 2 for Windows  |
|      |-------------------------|
|      | allows  | plain | style |
|      | select. | copy  | copy  |
|--------------------------------|
| <q>  |   no    |  no   |  no   |
|--------------------------------|
| list |   no    |  yes  |  ?    |
|--------------------------------|
| css  |   no    |  no   |  no   |
\--------------------------------/

FIrefox is bizarre. It's weird to see unselected bullets being copyed,  
even with different signs:
I remarked that sometimes Firefox uses
    # * o +
characters to symbolize bullets depending on the situation.
(I couldn't identify clearly when it puts '#' as a bullet, but it did that  
with a "list-style-type:square;" list.
For the other characters, they're used for nested list items.)

PS: can someone run these simple tests on Safari and report the results?

>
>> I would like to know if the CSS specifications say something about this.
>
> Afaik it doesn't. CSS2.1 has this:
> "Generated content does not alter the document tree. In particular, it
> is not fed back to the document language processor (e.g., for
> reparsing)."
> but that doesn't relate to selecting and copying generated content, and
> no such rule is found in the CSS3 draft.
>

It should be there, to eliminate inconsistencies between browsers.

> But IMO the behaviour should be specified as a MUST NOT. A UA must not
> facilitate abuse of the generated content method.
>

I'd have to disagree.

-- 
Yahia
<http://yahia.ma/antiblog/>

Received on Sunday, 22 April 2007 23:16:02 UTC