HTML: The Living Standard

Edition for Web Developers — Last Updated 16 January 2024

1. 6 User interaction
   1. 6.1 The hidden attribute
   2. 6.2 Page visibility
      1. 6.2.1 The VisibilityStateEntry interface
   3. 6.3 Inert subtrees
      1. 6.3.1 Modal dialogs and inert subtrees
      2. 6.3.2 The inert attribute
   4. 6.4 Tracking user activation
      1. 6.4.1 The UserActivation interface
   5. 6.5 Activation behavior of elements
      1. 6.5.1 The ToggleEvent interface
   6. 6.6 Focus
      1. 6.6.1 Introduction
      2. 6.6.2 Data model
      3. 6.6.3 The tabindex attribute
      4. 6.6.4 Focus management APIs
      5. 6.6.5 The autofocus attribute
   7. 6.7 Assigning keyboard shortcuts
      1. 6.7.1 Introduction
      2. 6.7.2 The accesskey attribute
   8. 6.8 Editing
      1. 6.8.1 Making document regions editable: The contenteditable content attribute
      2. 6.8.2 Making entire documents editable: the designMode getter and setter
      3. 6.8.3 Best practices for in-page editors
      4. 6.8.4 Spelling and grammar checking
      5. 6.8.5 Autocapitalization
      6. 6.8.6 Input modalities: the inputmode attribute
      7. 6.8.7 Input modalities: the enterkeyhint attribute
   9. 6.9 Find-in-page
      1. 6.9.1 Introduction
      2. 6.9.2 Interaction with details and hidden=until-found
      3. 6.9.3 Interaction with selection
   10. 6.10 Close requests and close watchers
       1. 6.10.1 Close requests
       2. 6.10.2 The CloseWatcher interface

6 User interaction

6.1 The hidden attribute

All HTML elements may have the hidden content attribute set. The hidden attribute is an enumerated attribute with the following keywords and states:

The attribute's missing value default is the not hidden state, and its invalid value default is the hidden state.

When an element has the hidden attribute in the hidden state, 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 are in the hidden state. This requirement may be implemented indirectly through the style layer. For example, a web browser could implement these requirements using the rules suggested in the Rendering section.

When an element has the hidden attribute in the hidden until found state, it indicates that the element is hidden like the hidden state but the content inside the element will be accessible to find-in-page and fragment navigation. When these features attempt to scroll to a target which is in the element's subtree, the user agent will remove the hidden attribute in order to reveal the content before scrolling to it. In addition to removing the hidden attribute, an event named beforematch is also fired on the element before the hidden attribute is removed.

Web browsers will use 'content-visibility: hidden' instead of 'display: none' when the hidden attribute is in the hidden until found state, as specified in the Rendering section.

  <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.

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.

6.2 Page visibility

A traversable navigable's system visibility state, including its initial value upon creation, is determined by the user agent. It represents, for example, whether the browser window is minimized, a browser tab is currently in the background, or a system element such as a task switcher obscures the page.

When a user-agent determines that the system visibility state for traversable navigable traversable has changed to newState, it must run the following steps:

1. Let navigables be the inclusive descendant navigables of traversable's active document.

2. For each navigable of navigables in what order?:

   1. Let document be navigable's active document.

   2. Queue a global task on the user interaction task source given document's relevant global object to update the visibility state of document with newState.

A Document has a visibility state, which is either "hidden" or "visible", initially set to "hidden".

The visibilityState getter steps are to return this's visibility state.

The hidden getter steps are to return true if this's visibility state is "hidden", otherwise false.

To update the visibility state of Document document to visibilityState:

1. If document's visibility state equals visibilityState, then return.

2. Set document's visibility state to visibilityState.

3. Queue a new VisibilityStateEntry whose visibility state is visibilityState and whose timestamp is the current high resolution time given document's relevant global object.

4. Run the screen orientation change steps with document. [SCREENORIENTATION]

5. Run any page visibility change steps which may be defined in other specifications, with visibility state and document.

   It would be better if specification authors sent a pull request to add calls from here into their specifications directly, instead of using the page visibility change steps hook, to ensure well-defined cross-specification call order. As of the time of this writing the following specifications are known to have page visibility change steps, which will be run in an unspecified order: Device Posture API and Web NFC. [DEVICEPOSTURE] [WEBNFC]

6. Fire an event named visibilitychange at document, with its bubbles attribute initialized to true.

6.2.1 The VisibilityStateEntry interface

The VisibilityStateEntry interface exposes visibility changes to the document, from the moment the document becomes active.

function wasHiddenBeforeFirstContentfulPaint() {
    const fcpEntry = performance.getEntriesByName("first-contentful-paint")[0];
    const visibilityStateEntries = performance.getEntriesByType("visibility-state");
    return visibilityStateEntries.some(e =>
                                            e.startTime < fcpEntry.startTime &&
                                            e.name === "hidden");
}

Since hiding a page can cause throttling of rendering and other user-agent operations, it is common to use visibility changes as an indication that such throttling has occurred. However, other things could also cause throttling in different browsers, such as long periods of inactivity.

The VisibilityStateEntry has an associated DOMHighResTimeStamp timestamp.

The VisibilityStateEntry has an associated "visible" or "hidden" visibility state.

The name getter steps are to return this's visibility state.

The entryType getter steps are to return "visibility-state".

The startTime getter steps are to return this's timestamp.

The duration getter steps are to return zero.

6.3 Inert subtrees

See also inert for an explanation of the attribute of the same name.

A node (in particular elements and text nodes) can be inert. When a node is inert:

• Hit-testing must act as if the 'pointer-events' CSS property were set to 'none'.

• Text selection functionality must act as if the 'user-select' CSS property were set to 'none'.

• If it is editable, the node behaves as if it were non-editable.

• The user agent should ignore the node for the purposes of find-in-page.

Inert nodes generally cannot be focused, and user agents do not expose the inert nodes to accessibility APIs or assistive technologies. Inert nodes that are commands will become inoperable to users, in the manner described above.

User agents may allow the user to override the restrictions on find-in-page and text selection, however.

By default, a node is not inert.

6.3.1 Modal dialogs and inert subtrees

A Document document is blocked by a modal dialog subject if subject is the topmost dialog element in document's top layer. While document is so blocked, every node that is connected to document, with the exception of the subject element and its flat tree descendants, must become inert.

subject can additionally become inert via the inert attribute, but only if specified on subject itself (i.e., subject escapes inertness of ancestors); subject's flat tree descendants can become inert in a similar fashion.

The dialog element's showModal() method causes this mechanism to trigger, by adding the dialog element to its node document's top layer.

6.3.2 The inert attribute

The inert attribute is a boolean attribute that indicates, by its presence, that the element and all its flat tree descendants which don't otherwise escape inertness (such as modal dialogs) are to be made inert by the user agent.

An inert subtree should not contain any content or controls which are critical to understanding or using aspects of the page which are not in the inert state. Content in an inert subtree will not be perceivable by all users, or interactive. Authors should not specify elements as inert unless the content they represent are also visually obscured in some way. In most cases, authors should not specify the inert attribute on individual form controls. In these instances, the disabled attribute is probably more appropriate.

The following example shows how to mark partially loaded content, visually obscured by a "loading" message, as inert.

<section aria-labelledby=s1>
  <h3 id=s1>Population by City</h3>
  <div class=container>
    <div class=loading><p>Loading...</p></div>
    <div inert>
      <form>
        <fieldset>
          <legend>Date range</legend>
          <div>
            <label for=start>Start</label>
            <input type=date id=start>
          </div>
          <div>
            <label for=end>End</label>
            <input type=date id=end>
          </div>
          <div>
            <button>Apply</button>
          </div>
        </fieldset>
      </form>
      <table>
        <caption>From 20-- to 20--</caption>
        <thead>
          <tr>
            <th>City</th>
            <th>State</th>
            <th>20-- Population</th>
            <th>20-- Population</th>
            <th>Percentage change</th>
          </tr>
        </thead>
        <tbody>
          <!-- ... -->
        </tbody>
      </table>
    </div>
  </div>
</section>

The "loading" overlay obscures the inert content, making it visually apparent that the inert content is not presently accessible. Notice that the heading and "loading" text are not descendants of the element with the inert attribute. This will ensure this text is accessible to all users, while the inert content cannot be interacted with by anyone.

The inert IDL attribute must reflect the content attribute of the same name.

6.4 Tracking user activation

To prevent abuse of certain APIs that could be annoying to users (e.g., opening popups or vibrating phones), user agents allow these APIs only when the user is actively interacting with the web page or has interacted with the page at least once. This "active interaction" state is maintained through the mechanisms defined in this section.

APIs that are dependent on user activation are classified into different levels:

Sticky activation-gated APIs

These APIs require the sticky activation state to be true, so they are blocked until the very first user activation.

Transient activation-gated APIs

These APIs require the transient activation state to be true, but they don't consume it, so multiple calls are allowed per user activation until the transient state expires.

Transient activation-consuming APIs

These APIs require the transient activation state to be true, and they consume user activation in each call to prevent multiple calls per user activation.

History-action activation-consuming APIs

These APIs require the history-action activation state to be true, and they consume history-action user activation in each call to prevent multiple calls per user activation.

6.4.1 The UserActivation interface

Each Window has an associated UserActivation, which is a UserActivation object. Upon creation of the Window object, its associated UserActivation must be set to a new UserActivation object created in the Window object's relevant realm.

navigator.userActivation.hasBeenActive

MDN

Navigator/userActivation

FirefoxNoSafari16.4+Chrome72+

---

Opera?Edge79+

---

Edge (Legacy)?Internet ExplorerNo

---

Firefox Android?Safari iOS?Chrome Android?WebView Android?Samsung Internet?Opera Android?

UserActivation/hasBeenActive

FirefoxNoSafari16.4+Chrome72+

---

Opera?Edge79+

---

Edge (Legacy)?Internet ExplorerNo

---

Firefox Android?Safari iOS?Chrome Android?WebView Android?Samsung Internet?Opera Android?

Returns whether the window has sticky activation.

navigator.userActivation.isActive

MDN

UserActivation/hasBeenActive

FirefoxNoSafari16.4+Chrome72+

---

Opera?Edge79+

---

Edge (Legacy)?Internet ExplorerNo

---

Firefox Android?Safari iOS?Chrome Android?WebView Android?Samsung Internet?Opera Android?

Returns whether the window has transient activation.

6.5 Activation behavior of elements

Certain elements in HTML have an activation behavior, which means that the user can activate them. This is always caused by a click event.

element.click()

Acts as if the element was clicked.

6.5.1 The ToggleEvent interface

event.oldState

✔MDN

ToggleEvent/oldState

Support in all current engines.

Firefox🔰 114+Safari17+Chrome114+

---

Opera?Edge114+

---

Edge (Legacy)?Internet ExplorerNo

---

Firefox Android?Safari iOS?Chrome Android?WebView Android?Samsung Internet?Opera Android?

Set to "closed" when transitioning from closed to open, or set to "open" when transitioning from open to closed.

event.newState

✔MDN

ToggleEvent/newState

Support in all current engines.

Firefox🔰 114+Safari17+Chrome114+

---

Opera?Edge114+

---

Edge (Legacy)?Internet ExplorerNo

---

Firefox Android?Safari iOS?Chrome Android?WebView Android?Samsung Internet?Opera Android?

Set to "open" when transitioning from closed to open, or set to "closed" when transitioning from open to closed.

The oldState and newState attributes must return the values they are initialized to.

A toggle task tracker is a struct which has:

task

A task which fires a ToggleEvent.

old state

A string which represents the task's event's value for the oldState attribute.

6.6 Focus

6.6.1 Introduction

An HTML user interface typically consists of multiple interactive widgets, such as form controls, scrollable regions, links, dialog boxes, browser tabs, and so forth. These widgets form a hierarchy, with some (e.g. browser tabs, dialog boxes) containing others (e.g. links, form controls).

When interacting with an interface using a keyboard, key input is channeled from the system, through the hierarchy of interactive widgets, to an active widget, which is said to be focused.

Keyboard events are always targeted at this focused element.

6.6.2 Data model

A top-level traversable has system focus when it can receive keyboard input channeled from the operating system, possibly targeted at one of its active document's descendant navigables.

A top-level traversable has user attention when its system visibility state is "visible", and it either has system focus or user agent widgets directly related to it can receive keyboard input channeled from the operating system.

User attention is lost when a browser window loses focus, whereas system focus might also be lost to other system widgets in the browser window such as a location bar.

A Document d is a fully active descendant of a top-level traversable with user attention when d is fully active and d's node navigable's top-level traversable has user attention.

The term focusable area is used to refer to regions of the interface that can further become the target of such keyboard input. Focusable areas can be elements, parts of elements, or other regions managed by the user agent.

Each focusable area has a DOM anchor, which is a Node object that represents the position of the focusable area in the DOM. (When the focusable area is itself a Node, it is its own DOM anchor.) The DOM anchor is used in some APIs as a substitute for the focusable area when there is no other DOM object to represent the focusable area.

The following table describes what objects can be focusable areas. The cells in the left column describe objects that can be focusable areas; the cells in the right column describe the DOM anchors for those elements. (The cells that span both columns are non-normative examples.)

<map id=wallmap><area alt="Enter Door" coords="10,10,100,200" href="door.html"></map>
...
<img src="images/innerwall.jpeg" alt="There is a white wall here, with a door." usemap="#wallmap">
...
<img src="images/outerwall.jpeg" alt="There is a red wall here, with a door." usemap="#wallmap">

A navigable container (e.g. an iframe) is a focusable area, but key events routed to a navigable container get immediately routed to its content navigable's active document. Similarly, in sequential focus navigation a navigable container essentially acts merely as a placeholder for its content navigable's active document.

One focusable area in each Document is designated the focused area of the document. Which control is so designated changes over time, based on algorithms in this specification.

Even if a document is not fully active and not shown to the user, it can still have a focused area of the document. If a document's fully active state changes, its focused area of the document will stay the same.

The currently focused area of a top-level traversable traversable is the focusable area-or-null returned by this algorithm:

1. If traversable does not have system focus, then return null.

2. Let candidate be traversable's active document.

3. While candidate's focused area is a navigable container with a non-null content navigable: set candidate to the active document of that navigable container's content navigable.

4. If candidate's focused area is non-null, set candidate to candidate's focused area.

5. Return candidate.

The current focus chain of a top-level traversable traversable is the focus chain of the currently focused area of traversable, if traversable is non-null, or an empty list otherwise.

An element that is the DOM anchor of a focusable area is said to gain focus when that focusable area becomes the currently focused area of a top-level traversable. When an element is the DOM anchor of a focusable area of the currently focused area of a top-level traversable, it is focused.

6.6.3 The tabindex attribute

The tabindex content attribute allows authors to make an element and regions that have the element as its DOM anchor be focusable areas, allow or prevent them from being sequentially focusable, and determine their relative ordering for 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 sequentially focusable focusable areas.

The tabindex attribute, if specified, must have a value that is a valid integer. Positive numbers specify the relative position of the element's focusable areas in the sequential focus navigation order, and negative numbers indicate that the control is not sequentially focusable.

Developers should use caution when using values other than 0 or −1 for their tabindex attributes as this is complicated to do correctly.

6.6.4 Focus management APIs

documentOrShadowRoot.activeElement

Returns the deepest element in the document through which or to which key events are being routed. This is, roughly speaking, the focused element in the document.

For the purposes of this API, when a child navigable is focused, its container is focused within its parent's active document. For example, if the user moves the focus to a text control in an iframe, the iframe is the element returned by the activeElement API in the iframe's node document.

Similarly, when the focused element is in a different node tree than documentOrShadowRoot, the element returned will be the host that's located in the same node tree as documentOrShadowRoot if documentOrShadowRoot is a shadow-including inclusive ancestor of the focused element, and null if not.

document.hasFocus()

Returns true if key events are being routed through or to the document; otherwise, returns false. Roughly speaking, this corresponds to the document, or a document nested inside this one, being focused.

window.focus()

Moves the focus to the window's navigable, if any.

element.focus([ { preventScroll: true } ])

Moves the focus to the element.

If the element is a navigable container, moves the focus to its content navigable instead.

By default, this method also scrolls the element into view. Providing the preventScroll option and setting it to true prevents this behavior.

element.blur()

Moves the focus to the viewport. Use of this method is discouraged; if you want to focus the viewport, call the focus() method on the Document's document element.

Do not use this method to hide the focus ring if you find the focus ring unsightly. Instead, use the :focus-visible pseudo-class to override the 'outline' property, and provide a different way to show what element is focused. Be aware that if an alternative focusing style isn't made available, the page will be significantly less usable for people who primarily navigate pages using a keyboard, or those with reduced vision who use focus outlines to help them navigate the page.

For example, to hide the outline from textarea elements and instead use a yellow background to indicate focus, you could use:

textarea:focus-visible { outline: none; background: yellow; color: black; }

6.6.5 The autofocus attribute

The autofocus content attribute allows the author to indicate that an element is to be focused as soon as the page is loaded, allowing the user to just start typing without having to manually focus the main element.

When the autofocus attribute is specified on an element inside dialog elements or HTML elements whose popover attribute is set, then it will be focused when the dialog or popover becomes shown.

The autofocus attribute is a boolean attribute.

To find the nearest ancestor autofocus scoping root element given an Element element:

1. If element is a dialog element, then return element.

2. If element's popover attribute is not in the no popover state, then return element.

3. Let ancestor be element.

4. While ancestor has a parent element:

   1. Set ancestor to ancestor's parent element.

   2. If ancestor is a dialog element, then return ancestor.

   3. If ancestor's popover attribute is not in the no popover state, then return ancestor.

5. Return ancestor.

There must not be two elements with the same nearest ancestor autofocus scoping root element that both have the autofocus attribute specified.

<input maxlength="256" name="q" value="" autofocus>
<input type="submit" value="Search">

<div contenteditable autofocus>Edit <strong>me!</strong><div>

6.7 Assigning keyboard shortcuts

6.7.1 Introduction

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.

<input type=button value=Collect onclick="collect()"
       accesskey="C 1" id=c>

function addShortcutKeyLabel(button) {
  if (button.accessKeyLabel != '')
    button.value += ' (' + button.accessKeyLabel + ')';
}
addShortcutKeyLabel(document.getElementById('c'));

6.7.2 The accesskey attribute

All 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 none of which are identical to another token and each of which must be exactly one code point in length.

<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>

<form action="/search">
 <label>Search: <input type="search" name="q" accesskey="s 0"></label>
 <input type="submit">
</form>

<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>

6.8 Editing

6.8.1 Making document regions editable: The contenteditable content attribute

The contenteditable content attribute is an enumerated attribute with the following keywords and states:

The attribute's missing value default and invalid value default are both the inherit state. The inherit state indicates that the element is editable (or not) based on the parent element's state.

<form method=POST>
 <fieldset>
  <legend>New article</legend>
  <textarea name=article>&lt;p>Hello world.&lt;/p></textarea>
 </fieldset>
 <p><button>Publish</button></p>
</form>

<form method=POST>
 <fieldset>
  <legend>New article</legend>
  <textarea id=textarea name=article>&lt;p>Hello world.&lt;/p></textarea>
  <div id=div style="white-space: pre-wrap" hidden><p>Hello world.</p></div>
  <script>
   let textarea = document.getElementById("textarea");
   let div = document.getElementById("div");
   textarea.hidden = true;
   div.hidden = false;
   div.contentEditable = "true";
   div.oninput = (e) => {
     textarea.value = div.innerHTML;
   };
  </script>
 </fieldset>
 <p><button>Publish</button></p>
</form>

<!doctype html>
<html lang=en>
<title>Live CSS editing!</title>
<style style=white-space:pre contenteditable>
html { margin:.2em; font-size:2em; color:lime; background:purple }
head, title, style { display:block }
body { display:none }
</style>

element.contentEditable [ = value ]

Returns "true", "plaintext-only", "false", or "inherit", based on the state of the contenteditable attribute.

Can be set, to change that state.

Throws a "SyntaxError" DOMException if the new value isn't one of those strings.

element.isContentEditable

Returns true if the element is editable; otherwise, returns false.

6.8.2 Making entire documents editable: the designMode getter and setter

document.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. This focuses the document and resets the selection in that document.

6.8.3 Best practices for in-page editors

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.

6.8.4 Spelling and grammar checking

The spellcheck attribute is an enumerated attribute with the following keywords and states:

The attribute's missing value default and invalid value default are both the default state. The default state indicates that the element is to act according to a default behavior, possibly based on the parent element's own spellcheck state, as defined below.

element.spellcheck [ = value ]

Returns true if the element is to have its spelling and grammar checked; otherwise, returns false.

Can be set, to override the default and set the spellcheck content attribute.

This specification does not define the user interface for spelling and grammar checkers. A user agent could offer on-demand checking, could perform continuous checking while the checking is enabled, or could use other interfaces.

6.8.5 Autocapitalization

Some methods of entering text, for example virtual keyboards on mobile devices, and also voice input, often assist users by automatically capitalizing the first letter of sentences (when composing text in a language with this convention). A virtual keyboard that implements autocapitalization might automatically switch to showing uppercase letters (but allow the user to toggle it back to lowercase) when a letter that should be autocapitalized is about to be typed. Other types of input, for example voice input, may perform autocapitalization in a way that does not give users an option to intervene first. The autocapitalize attribute allows authors to control such behavior.

The autocapitalize attribute, as typically implemented, does not affect behavior when typing on a physical keyboard. (For this reason, as well as the ability for users to override the autocapitalization behavior in some cases or edit the text after initial input, the attribute must not be relied on for any sort of input validation.)

The autocapitalize attribute can be used on an editing host to control autocapitalization behavior for the hosted editable region, on an input or textarea element to control the behavior for inputting text into that element, or on a form element to control the default behavior for all autocapitalize-inheriting elements associated with the form element.

The autocapitalize attribute never causes autocapitalization to be enabled for input elements whose type attribute is in one of the URL, Email, or Password states.

The autocapitalization processing model is based on selecting among five autocapitalization hints, defined as follows:

default

The user agent and input method should use make their own determination of whether or not to enable autocapitalization.

none

No autocapitalization should be applied (all letters should default to lowercase).

sentences

The first letter of each sentence should default to a capital letter; all other letters should default to lowercase.

words

The first letter of each word should default to a capital letter; all other letters should default to lowercase.

characters

All letters should default to uppercase.

The autocapitalize attribute is an enumerated attribute whose states are the possible autocapitalization hints. The autocapitalization hint specified by the attribute's state combines with other considerations to form the used autocapitalization hint, which informs the behavior of the user agent. The keywords for this attribute and their state mappings are as follows:

The attribute's missing value default is the default state, and its invalid value default is the sentences state.

element.autocapitalize [ = value ]

Returns the current autocapitalization state for the element, or an empty string if it hasn't been set. Note that for input and textarea elements that inherit their state from a form element, this will return the autocapitalization state of the form element, but for an element in an editable region, this will not return the autocapitalization state of the editing host (unless this element is, in fact, the editing host).

Can be set, to set the autocapitalize content attribute (and thereby change the autocapitalization behavior for the element).

6.8.6 Input modalities: the inputmode attribute

User agents can support the inputmode attribute on form controls (such as the value of textarea elements), or in elements in an editing host (e.g., using contenteditable).

The inputmode content attribute is an enumerated attribute that specifies what kind of input mechanism would be most helpful for users entering content.

6.8.7 Input modalities: the enterkeyhint attribute

User agents can support the enterkeyhint attribute on form controls (such as the value of textarea elements), or in elements in an editing host (e.g., using contenteditable).

The enterkeyhint content attribute is an enumerated attribute that specifies what action label (or icon) to present for the enter key on virtual keyboards. This allows authors to customize the presentation of the enter key in order to make it more helpful for users.

6.9 Find-in-page

6.9.1 Introduction

This section defines find-in-page — a common user-agent mechanism which allows users to search through the contents of the page for particular information.

Access to the find-in-page feature is provided via a find-in-page interface. This is a user-agent provided user interface, which allows the user to specify input and the parameters of the search. This interface can appear as a result of a shortcut or a menu selection.

A combination of text input and settings in the find-in-page interface represents the user query. This typically includes the text that the user wants to search for, as well as optional settings (e.g., the ability to restrict the search to whole words only).

The user-agent processes page contents for a given query, and identifies zero or more matches, which are content ranges that satisfy the user query.

One of the matches is identified to the user as the active match. It is highlighted and scrolled into view. The user can navigate through the matches by advancing the active match using the find-in-page interface.

Issue #3539 tracks standardizing how find-in-page underlies the currently-unspecified window.find() API.

6.9.2 Interaction with details and hidden=until-found

When find-in-page begins searching for matches, all details elements in the page which do not have their open attribute set should have the skipped contents of their second slot become accessible, without modifying the open attribute, in order to make find-in-page able to search through it. Similarly, all HTML elements with the hidden attribute in the hidden until found state should have their skipped contents become accessible without modifying the hidden attribute in order to make find-in-page able to search through them. After find-in-page finishes searching for matches, the details elements and the elements with the hidden attribute in the hidden until found state should have their contents become skipped again. This entire process must happen synchronously (and so is not observable to users or to author code). [CSSCONTAIN]

When find-in-page chooses a new active match, perform the following steps:

1. Let node be the first node in the active match.

2. Queue a global task on the user interaction task source given node's relevant global object to run the following steps:

   1. Run the ancestor details revealing algorithm on node.

   2. Run the ancestor hidden-until-found revealing algorithm on node.

When find-in-page auto-expands a details element like this, it will fire a toggle event. As with the separate scroll event that find-in-page fires, this event could be used by the page to discover what the user is typing into the find-in-page dialog. If the page creates a tiny scrollable area with the current search term and every possible next character the user could type separated by a gap, and observes which one the browser scrolls to, it can add that character to the search term and update the scrollable area to incrementally build the search term. By wrapping each possible next match in a closed details element, the page could listen to toggle events instead of scroll events. This attack could be addressed for both events by not acting on every character the user types into the find-in-page dialog.

6.9.3 Interaction with selection

The find-in-page process is invoked in the context of a document, and may have an effect on the selection of that document. Specifically, the range that defines the active match can dictate the current selection. These selection updates, however, can happen at different times during the find-in-page process (e.g. upon the find-in-page interface dismissal or upon a change in the active match range).

6.10 Close requests and close watchers

6.10.1 Close requests

In an implementation-defined (and likely device-specific) manner, a user can send a close request to the user agent. This indicates that the user wishes to close something that is currently being shown on the screen, such as a popover, menu, dialog, picker, or display mode.

On platforms where Esc is the close request, the user agent will first fire an appropriately-initialized keydown and keyup event sequence. If the web developer cancels the keyup event by calling preventDefault(), then nothing further happens. But if the event fires without being canceled, then the user agent proceeds to process close watchers.

On platforms where a back button is a potential close request, no event is involved, so when the back button is pressed, the user agent proceeds directly to process close watchers. If there is a close watcher on the close watcher stack, then that will get triggered. If there is not, then the user agent can interpret the back button press in another way, for example as a request to traverse the history by a delta of −1.

6.10.2 The CloseWatcher interface

watcher = new CloseWatcher()

watcher = new CloseWatcher({ signal })

Creates a new CloseWatcher instance.

If the signal option is provided, then watcher can be destroyed (as if by watcher.destroy()) by aborting the given AbortSignal.

If any close watcher is already active, and the Window does not have history-action activation, then the resulting CloseWatcher will be closed together with that already-active close watcher in response to any close request. (This already-active close watcher does not necessarily have to be a CloseWatcher object; it could be a modal dialog element, or a popover generated by an element with the popover attribute.)

watcher.requestClose()

Acts as if a close request was sent targeting watcher, by first firing a cancel event, and if that event is not canceled with preventDefault(), proceeding to fire a close event before deactivating the close watcher as if watcher.destroy() was called.

This is a helper utility that can be used to consolidate cancelation and closing logic into the cancel and close event handlers, by having all non-close request closing affordances call this method.

watcher.close()

Immediately fires the close event, and then deactivates the close watcher as if watcher.destroy() was called.

This is a helper utility that can be used trigger the closing logic into the close event handler, skipping any logic in the cancel event handler.

watcher.destroy()

Deactivates watcher, so that it will no longer receive close events and so that new independent CloseWatcher instances can be constructed.

This is intended to be called if the relevant UI element is torn down in some other way than being closed.

The following are the event handlers (and their corresponding event handler event types) supported, as event handler IDL attributes, by all objects implementing the CloseWatcher interface:

const watcher = new CloseWatcher();
const picker = setUpAndShowPickerDOMElement();

let chosenValue = null;

watcher.onclose = () => {
  chosenValue = picker.querySelector('input').value;
  picker.remove();
};

picker.querySelector('.close-button').onclick = () => watcher.requestClose();

watcher.oncancel = async (e) => {
  if (hasUnsavedData) {
    e.preventDefault();

    const userReallyWantsToClose = await askForConfirmation("Are you sure you want to close?");
    if (userReallyWantsToClose) {
      hasUnsavedData = false;
      watcher.close();
    }
  }
};

Combined, the above two examples show how requestClose() and close() differ. Because we used requestClose() in the click event handler for the close button, clicking that button will trigger the CloseWatcher's cancel event, and thus potentially ask the user for confirmation if there is unsaved data. If we had used close(), then this check would be skipped. Sometimes that is appropriate, but usually requestClose() is the better option for user-triggered close requests.

window.onload = () => {
  // This will work as normal: it is the first close watcher created without user activation.
  (new CloseWatcher()).onclose = () => { /* ... */ };
};

button1.onclick = () => {
  // This will work as normal: the button click counts as user activation.
  (new CloseWatcher()).onclose = () => { /* ... */ };
};

button2.onclick = () => {
  // These will be grouped together, and both will close in response to a single close request.
  (new CloseWatcher()).onclose = () => { /* ... */ };
  (new CloseWatcher()).onclose = () => { /* ... */ };
};