hidden
attributeAll HTML elements may have the hidden
content attribute set. The hidden
attribute is a boolean
attribute.
When specified on an element, it indicates that the element is not
yet, or is no longer, directly relevant to the page's current state,
or that it is being used to declare content to be reused by other
parts of the page as opposed to being directly accessed by the user.
User agents should not render elements that have
the hidden
attribute
specified.
In the following skeletal example, the attribute is used to hide the Web game's main screen until the user logs in:
<h1>The Example Game</h1> <section id="login"> <h2>Login</h2> <form> ... <!-- calls login() once the user's credentials have been checked --> </form> <script> function login() { // switch screens document.getElementById('login').hidden = true; document.getElementById('game').hidden = false; } </script> </section> <section id="game" hidden> ... </section>
The hidden
attribute must not be
used to hide content that could legitimately be shown in another
presentation. For example, it is incorrect to use hidden
to hide panels in a tabbed dialog,
because the tabbed interface is merely a kind of overflow
presentation — one could equally well just show all the form
controls in one big page with a scrollbar. It is similarly incorrect
to use this attribute to hide content just from one presentation
— if something is marked hidden
, it is hidden from all
presentations, including, for instance, screen readers.
Elements that are not themselves hidden
must not hyperlink to
elements that are hidden
. The for
attributes of label
and
output
elements that are not themselves hidden
must similarly not refer to
elements that are hidden
. In both
cases, such references would cause user confusion.
Elements and scripts may, however, refer to elements that are
hidden
in other contexts.
For example, it would be incorrect to use the href
attribute to link to a
section marked with the hidden
attribute. If the content is not applicable or relevant, then there
is no reason to link to it.
It would be fine, however, to use the ARIA aria-describedby
attribute to
refer to descriptions that are themselves hidden
. While hiding the descriptions
implies that they are not useful alone, they could be written in
such a way that they are useful in the specific context of being
referenced from the images that they describe.
Similarly, a canvas
element with the hidden
attribute could be used by a
scripted graphics engine as an off-screen buffer, and a form
control could refer to a hidden form
element using its
form
attribute.
Elements in a section hidden by the hidden
attribute are still active,
e.g. scripts and form controls in such sections still execute
and submit respectively. Only their presentation to the user
changes.
The hidden
IDL
attribute must reflect the content attribute of the
same name.
A subtree of a Document
can be marked as
inert. When a node or one of its ancestors is
inert, then the user agent must act as if the element
was absent for the purposes of targetting user interaction events,
may ignore the node for the purposes of text search user interfaces
(commonly known as "find in page"), and may prevent the user from
selecting text in that node. User agents should allow the user to
override the restrictions on search and text selection, however.
For example, consider a page that consists of
just a single inert paragraph positioned in the middle
of a body
. If a user moves their pointing device from
the body
over to the inert paragraph and
clicks on the paragraph, no mouseover
event would be fired, and
the mousemove
and click
events would be fired on the
body
element rather than the paragraph.
When a node or one of its ancestors is inert, it also can't be focusable, and it is disabled if it is a command.
An entire Document
can be marked as blocked by
a modal dialog dialog. While a
Document
is so marked, every node that is in the Document
, with the
exception of the dialog element, its ancestors,
and its descendants, must be marked inert. (The
elements excepted by this paragraph can additionally be marked
inert through other means; being part of a modal dialog
does not "protect" a node from being marked inert.)
Only one element at a time can mark a Document
as
being blocked by a modal dialog. When a new
dialog
is made to block a Document
, the previous element,
if any, stops blocking the Document
.
The dialog
element's showModal()
method makes use of
this mechanism.
inert
attributeThe inert
attribute is a
boolean attribute that indicates, by its presence, that
the element is to be made inert.
By default, there is no visual indication of a
subtree being inert. Authors are encouraged to clearly mark what
parts of their document are active and which are inert, to avoid
user confusion. In particular, it is worth remembering that not all
users can see all parts of a page at once; for example, users of
screen readers, users on small devices or with magnifiers, and even
users just using particularly small windows might not be able to see
the active part of a page and may get frustrated if inert sections
are not obviously inert. For individual controls, the disabled
attribute is probably
more appropriate.
click
()Acts as if the element was clicked.
The click()
method must
run synthetic click activation steps on the
element.
When an element is focused, key events received by the
document must be targeted at that element. There may be no element
focused; when no element is focused, key events received by the
document must be targeted at the body element, if there
is one, or else at the Document
's root element, if
there is one. If there is no root element, key events must not be
fired.
User agents may track focus for each browsing
context or Document
individually, or may support
only one focused element per top-level browsing context
— user agents should follow platform conventions in this
regard.
Which elements within a top-level browsing context currently have focus must be independent of whether or not the top-level browsing context itself has the system focus.
When a child browsing context is focused, its browsing context container must also have focus.
When an element is focused, the element matches the
CSS :focus
pseudo-class.
tabindex
attributeThe tabindex
content attribute allows authors to control whether an element is
supposed to be focusable, whether it is supposed to be reachable
using sequential focus navigation, and what is to be the relative
order of the element for the purposes of sequential focus
navigation. The name "tab index" comes from the common use of the
"tab" key to navigate through the focusable elements. The term
"tabbing" refers to moving forward through the focusable elements
that can be reached using sequential focus navigation.
The tabindex
attribute, if
specified, must have a value that is a valid
integer.
Each element has a tabindex focus flag. This flag is a factor that contributes towards determining whether an element is focusable, as described in the next section.
If the attribute is specified, it must be parsed using the rules for parsing integers. The attribute's values have the following meanings:
The user agent should follow platform conventions to determine if the element's tabindex focus flag is set and, if so, whether the element can be reached using sequential focus navigation, and if so, what its relative order should be.
One valid reason to ignore the platform conventions and always allow an element to be focused (by setting its tabindex focus flag) would be if the user's only mechanism for activating an element is through a keyboard action that triggers the focused element.
The user agent must set the element's tabindex focus flag, but should not allow the element to be reached using sequential focus navigation.
One valid reason to ignore the requirement that
sequential focus navigation not allow the author to lead to the
element would be if the user's only mechanism for moving the focus
is sequential focus navigation. For instance, a keyboard-only user
would be unable to click on a text field with a negative tabindex
, so that user's user agent
would be well justified in allowing the user to tab to the control
regardless.
The user agent must set the element's tabindex focus flag, should allow the element to be reached using sequential focus navigation, and should follow platform conventions to determine the element's relative order.
The user agent must set the element's tabindex focus flag, should allow the element to be reached using sequential focus navigation, and should place the element in the sequential focus navigation order so that it is:
tabindex
attribute has been omitted
or whose value, when parsed, returns an error,tabindex
attribute has a value equal
to or less than zero,tabindex
attribute has a value
greater than zero but less than the value of the tabindex
attribute on the
element,tabindex
attribute has a value equal
to the value of the tabindex
attribute on the element but that is earlier in the document in
tree order than the element,tabindex
attribute has a value equal
to the value of the tabindex
attribute on the element but that is later in the document in
tree order than the element, andtabindex
attribute has a value
greater than the value of the tabindex
attribute on the
element.An element that has its tabindex focus flag set but does not otherwise have an activation behavior defined has an activation behavior that does nothing.
This means that an element that is only focusable
because of its tabindex
attribute
will fire a click
event in response
to a non-mouse activation (e.g. hitting the "enter" key while the
element is focused).
The tabIndex
IDL
attribute must reflect the value of the tabindex
content attribute. Its default
value is 0 for elements that are focusable and −1 for
elements that are not focusable.
An element is focusable if the user agent's default
behavior allows it to be focusable or if the element has its
tabindex focus flag set, but only if the element is
either being rendered or
is a descendant of a canvas
element that
represents embedded content, and only if
neither the element nor any of its ancestors are
inert.
User agents should make the following elements focusable as part of their default behavior, unless platform conventions dictate otherwise:
a
elements that have an href
attributelink
elements that have an href
attributebutton
elements that are not disabledinput
elements whose type
attribute are not in the
Hidden state and that
are not disabledselect
elements that are not disabledtextarea
elements that are not disabledcommand
elements that do not have a disabled
attributedraggable
attribute set, if that would enable the user agent to allow the
user to begin a drag operations for those elements without the use
of a pointing deviceIn addition, each shape that is generated for an
area
element should be focusable, unless
platform conventions dictate otherwise. (A single area
element can correspond to multiple shapes, since image maps can be
reused with multiple images on a page.)
The user agent may also make part of a details
element's rendering focusable, to enable the element to
be opened or closed using keyboard input. However, this is distinct
from the details
or summary
element being
focusable.
The focusing steps are as follows:
If the element is not in a
Document
, or if the element's
Document
has no browsing context, or if
the element's Document
's browsing context
has no top-level browsing context, or if the element
is not focusable, then abort these steps.
If focusing the element will remove the focus from another element, then run the unfocusing steps for that element.
Make the element the currently focused element in its top-level browsing context.
Some elements, most notably area
, can correspond
to more than one distinct focusable area. If a particular area was
indicated when the element was focused, then that is the area that
must get focus; otherwise, e.g. when using the focus()
method, the first such region in
tree order is the one that must be focused.
The user agent may apply relevant platform-specific conventions for focusing widgets.
For example, some platforms select the contents of a text field when that field is focused.
Fire a simple event named focus
at the element.
User agents must synchronously run the focusing steps for an element whenever the user moves the focus to a focusable element.
The unfocusing steps are as follows:
If the element is an input
element, and the
change
event applies to the
element, and the element does not have a defined activation
behavior, and the user has changed the element's value or its list of selected files
while the control was focused without committing that change, then
fire a simple event that bubbles named change
at the element.
Unfocus the element.
Fire a simple event named blur
at the element.
When an element that is focused stops being a focusable element, or stops being focused without another element being explicitly focused in its stead, the user agent should synchronously run the focusing steps for the body element, if there is one; if there is not, then the user agent should synchronously run the unfocusing steps for the affected element only.
For example, this might happen because the
element is removed from its Document
, or has a hidden
attribute added. It would also
happen to an input
element when the element gets disabled.
activeElement
Returns the currently focused element.
hasFocus
()Returns true if the document has focus; otherwise, returns false.
focus
()Focuses the window. Use of this method is discouraged. Allow the user to control window focus instead.
blur
()Unfocuses the window. Use of this method is discouraged. Allow the user to control window focus instead.
The activeElement
attribute on Document
objects must return the
element in the document that is focused. If no element in the
Document
is focused, this must return the body
element.
When a child browsing context is
focused, its browsing context container is also
focused, by definition. For
example, if the user moves the focus to a text field in an
iframe
, the iframe
is the element with
focus in the parent browsing context.
The hasFocus()
method
on Document
objects must return true if the
Document
's browsing context is focused,
and all its ancestor
browsing contexts are also focused, and the top-level
browsing context has the system focus. If the
Document
has no browsing context or if its
browsing context has no top-level browsing
context, then the method will always return false.
The focus()
method on the Window
object, when invoked, provides a
hint to the user agent that the script believes the user might be
interested in the contents of the browsing context of
the Window
object on which the method was invoked.
User agents are encouraged to have this focus()
method trigger some kind of
notification.
The blur()
method
on the Window
object, when invoked, provides a hint to
the user agent that the script believes the user probably is not
currently interested in the contents of the browsing
context of the Window
object on which the method
was invoked, but that the contents might become interesting again in
the future.
User agents are encouraged to ignore calls to this blur()
method entirely.
Historically the focus()
and blur()
methods actually affected the
system focus, but hostile sites widely abuse this behavior to the
user's detriment.
focus
()Focuses the element.
blur
()Unfocuses the element. Use of this method is discouraged. Focus another element instead.
Do not use this method to hide the focus ring if you find the focus ring unsightly. Instead, use a CSS rule to override the 'outline' property. (Be aware, however, that this makes the page significantly less usable for some people, especially those with reduced vision who use focus outlines to help them navigate the page.)
For example, to hide the outline from links, you could use:
:link:focus, :visited:focus { outline: none; }
The focus()
method,
when invoked, must run the following algorithm:
If the element is marked as locked for focus, then abort these steps.
If the element is not focusable, then abort these steps.
Mark the element as locked for focus.
If the element is not already focused, run the focusing steps for the element.
Unmark the element as locked for focus.
The blur()
method, when
invoked, should run the focusing steps for the
body element, if there is one; if there is not, then it
should run the unfocusing steps for the element on
which the method was called instead. User agents may selectively or
uniformly ignore calls to this method for usability reasons.
For example, if the blur()
method is unwisely being used to
remove the focus ring for aesthetics reasons, the page would become
unusable by keyboard users. Ignoring calls to this method would thus
allow keyboard users to interact with the page.
This section is non-normative.
Each element that can be activated or focused can be assigned a
single key combination to activate it, using the accesskey
attribute.
The exact shortcut is determined by the user agent, based on
information about the user's keyboard, what keyboard shortcuts
already exist on the platform, and what other shortcuts have been
specified on the page, using the information provided in the accesskey
attribute as a guide.
In order to ensure that a relevant keyboard shortcut is available
on a wide variety of input devices, the author can provide a number
of alternatives in the accesskey
attribute.
Each alternative consists of a single character, such as a letter or digit.
User agents can provide users with a list of the keyboard
shortcuts, but authors are encouraged to do so also. The accessKeyLabel
IDL attribute
returns a string representing the actual key combination assigned by
the user agent.
In this example, an author has provided a button that can be invoked using a shortcut key. To support full keyboards, the author has provided "C" as a possible key. To support devices equipped only with numeric keypads, the author has provided "1" as another possibly key.
<input type=button value=Collect onclick="collect()" accesskey="C 1" id=c>
To tell the user what the shortcut key is, the author has this script here opted to explicitly add the key combination to the button's label:
function addShortcutKeyLabel(button) { if (button.accessKeyLabel != '') button.value += ' (' + button.accessKeyLabel + ')'; } addShortcutKeyLabel(document.getElementById('c'));
Browsers on different platforms will show different labels, even for the same key combination, based on the convention prevalent on that platform. For example, if the key combination is the Control key, the Shift key, and the letter C, a Windows browser might display "Ctrl+Shift+C", whereas a Mac browser might display "^⇧C", while an Emacs browser might just display "C-C". Similarly, if the key combination is the Alt key and the Escape key, Windows might use "Alt+Esc", Mac might use "⌥⎋", and an Emacs browser might use "M-ESC" or "ESC ESC".
In general, therefore, it is unwise to attempt to parse the
value returned from the accessKeyLabel
IDL attribute.
accesskey
attributeAll HTML elements may have the accesskey
content attribute set. The
accesskey
attribute's value is
used by the user agent as a guide for creating a keyboard shortcut
that activates or focuses the element.
If specified, the value must be an ordered set of unique space-separated tokens that are case-sensitive, each of which must be exactly one Unicode code point in length.
In the following example, a variety of links are given with access keys so that keyboard users familiar with the site can more quickly navigate to the relevant pages:
<nav> <p> <a title="Consortium Activities" accesskey="A" href="/Consortium/activities">Activities</a> | <a title="Technical Reports and Recommendations" accesskey="T" href="/TR/">Technical Reports</a> | <a title="Alphabetical Site Index" accesskey="S" href="/Consortium/siteindex">Site Index</a> | <a title="About This Site" accesskey="B" href="/Consortium/">About Consortium</a> | <a title="Contact Consortium" accesskey="C" href="/Consortium/contact">Contact</a> </p> </nav>
In the following example, the search field is given two possible access keys, "s" and "0" (in that order). A user agent on a device with a full keyboard might pick Ctrl+Alt+S as the shortcut key, while a user agent on a small device with just a numeric keypad might pick just the plain unadorned key 0:
<form action="/search"> <label>Search: <input type="search" name="q" accesskey="s 0"></label> <input type="submit"> </form>
In the following example, a button has possible access keys described. A script then tries to update the button's label to advertise the key combination the user agent selected.
<input type=submit accesskey="N @ 1" value="Compose"> ... <script> function labelButton(button) { if (button.accessKeyLabel) button.value += ' (' + button.accessKeyLabel + ')'; } var inputs = document.getElementsByTagName('input'); for (var i = 0; i < inputs.length; i += 1) { if (inputs[i].type == "submit") labelButton(inputs[i]); } </script>
On one user agent, the button's label might become "Compose (⌘N)". On another, it might become "Compose (Alt+⇧+1)". If the user agent doesn't assign a key, it will be just "Compose". The exact string depends on what the assigned access key is, and on how the user agent represents that key combination.
An element's assigned access key is a key combination
derived from the element's accesskey
content attribute.
Initially, an element must not have an assigned access
key.
Whenever an element's accesskey
attribute is set, changed,
or removed, the user agent must update the element's assigned
access key by running the following steps:
If the element has no accesskey
attribute, then skip to the
fallback step below.
Otherwise, split the attribute's value on spaces, and let keys be the resulting tokens.
For each value in keys in turn, in the order the tokens appeared in the attribute's value, run the following substeps:
If the value is not a string exactly one Unicode code point in length, then skip the remainder of these steps for this value.
If the value does not correspond to a key on the system's keyboard, then skip the remainder of these steps for this value.
If the user agent can find a mix of zero or more modifier keys that, combined with the key that corresponds to the value given in the attribute, can be used as the access key, then the user agent may assign that combination of keys as the element's assigned access key and abort these steps.
Fallback: Optionally, the user agent may assign a key combination of its choosing as the element's assigned access key and then abort these steps.
If this step is reached, the element has no assigned access key.
Once a user agent has selected and assigned an access key for an
element, the user agent should not change the element's
assigned access key unless the accesskey
content attribute is changed
or the element is moved to another Document
.
When the user presses the key combination corresponding to the
assigned access key for an element, if the element
defines a command, the
command's Hidden
State facet is false (visible), the command's Disabled State facet is
also false (enabled), and the element is in a
Document
, then the user agent must trigger the
Action of the command.
User agents might expose elements that have an accesskey
attribute in other ways as
well, e.g. in a menu displayed in response to a specific key
combination.
The accessKey
IDL
attribute must reflect the accesskey
content attribute.
The accessKeyLabel
IDL
attribute must return a string that represents the element's
assigned access key, if any. If the element does not
have one, then the IDL attribute must return the empty string.
contenteditable
content
attributeThe contenteditable
attribute is an enumerated attribute whose keywords are
the empty string, true
, and false
. The empty string and the true
keyword map to the true state. The false
keyword maps to the false state. In
addition, there is a third state, the inherit state, which is
the missing value default (and the invalid value
default).
The true state indicates that the element is editable. The inherit state indicates that the element is editable if its parent is. The false state indicates that the element is not editable.
contentEditable
[ = value ]Returns "true
", "false
", or "inherit
", based
on the state of the contenteditable
attribute.
Can be set, to change that state.
Throws a SyntaxError
exception if the new value
isn't one of those strings.
isContentEditable
Returns true if the element is editable; otherwise, returns false.
The contentEditable
IDL
attribute, on getting, must return the string "true
" if the content attribute is set to the true
state, "false
" if the content attribute is set
to the false state, and "inherit
"
otherwise. On setting, if the new value is an ASCII
case-insensitive match for the string "inherit
" then the content attribute must be removed,
if the new value is an ASCII case-insensitive match for
the string "true
" then the content attribute
must be set to the string "true
", if the new
value is an ASCII case-insensitive match for the string
"false
" then the content attribute must be set
to the string "false
", and otherwise the
attribute setter must throw a SyntaxError
exception.
The isContentEditable
IDL attribute, on getting, must return true if the element is either
an editing host or editable, and false
otherwise.
designMode
IDL attributeDocuments have a designMode
, which
can be either enabled or disabled.
designMode
[ = value ]Returns "on
" if the document is editable,
and "off
" if it isn't.
Can be set, to change the document's current state.
The designMode
IDL
attribute on the Document
object takes two values,
"on
" and "off
". When it
is set, the new value must be compared in an ASCII
case-insensitive manner to these two values. If it matches
the "on
" value, then designMode
must be enabled,
and if it matches the "off
" value, then designMode
must be
disabled. Other values must be ignored.
When designMode
is
enabled, the IDL attribute must return the value "on
", and when it is disabled, it must return the
value "off
".
The last state set must persist until the document is destroyed
or the state is changed. Initially, documents must have their designMode
disabled.
Authors are encouraged to set the 'white-space' property on editing hosts and on markup that was originally created through these editing mechanisms to the value 'pre-wrap'. Default HTML whitespace handling is not well suited to WYSIWYG editing, and line wrapping will not work correctly in some corner cases if 'white-space' is left at its default value.
As an example of problems that occur if the default 'normal' value is used instead, consider the case of the user typing "yellow␣␣ball", with two spaces (here represented by "␣") between the words. With the editing rules in place for the default value of 'white-space' ('normal'), the resulting markup will either consist of "yellow ball" or "yellow ball"; i.e., there will be a non-breaking space between the two words in addition to the regular space. This is necessary because the 'normal' value for 'white-space' requires adjacent regular spaces to be collapsed together.
In the former case, "yellow⍽" might wrap to the next line ("⍽" being used here to represent a non-breaking space) even though "yellow" alone might fit at the end of the line; in the latter case, "⍽ball", if wrapped to the start of the line, would have visible indentation from the non-breaking space.
When 'white-space' is set to 'pre-wrap', however, the editing rules will instead simply put two regular spaces between the words, and should the two words be split at the end of a line, the spaces would be neatly removed from the rendering.