Bug 16645 – want way to make default button pulse like default Aqua dialog buttons.

• Status: RESOLVED
• Resolution: WONTFIX
• Component: DOM

[Mary Firenze]

The visual designer for Yahoo! Mail has requested that we make the default buttons in our HTML dialogs pulse blue like the default Aqua dialog buttons.  However, Adam Roben indicated that this is not supported in webkit and we could file an enhancement request to ask for it.   

I'm filing this bug to ask for that feature.   I've pasted the relevant parts of an e-mail on this topic below.  

Since Adam indicated that the button ring and the button pulse are separate, it would be nice to be able to turn each of these on.  It would also be nice to have guidelines on when each should be turned on so that we match users' expectations.

----- Original Message ----
From: Adam Roben <[e-mail]>
To: Darren James <[e-mail]>
Cc: Safari <[e-mail]>
Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2007 8:16:02 PM
Subject: Re: Question about styling buttons

Darren James wrote:
> I have a question about button appearance.  Our visual designer wants 
> the default button on our DHTML
> dialog to have the blue glow affect (like the native one on say the 
> alert dialog), rather than the
> fuzzy blue focus ring.  Is there a webkit specific CSS attribute or 
> some other way to achieve this?

I assume you mean you want the button to pulse from dark to light blue, 
as the default button in Aqua dialogs does? There unfortunately isn't a 
way to do that in WebKit at the moment. You could file a bug requesting 
such a feature, though. (Note that in the OS X interface, pulsing and 
focus rings are not mutually exclusive.)

[David Kilzer (:ddkilzer)]

<rdar://problem/5665248>

[Dave Hyatt]

'm concerned about adding this capability, since any Web page would then be able to use it.  We deliberately omitted the pulse from default form control buttons because it could create visually distracting and confusing Web pages (multiple forms on the page would have multiple pulses etc.).

[Mark Rowe (bdash)]

*** Bug 18007 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Brian Ellis]

(In reply to comment #2)
> 'm concerned about adding this capability, since any Web page would then be
> able to use it.  We deliberately omitted the pulse from default form control
> buttons because it could create visually distracting and confusing Web pages
> (multiple forms on the page would have multiple pulses etc.).
> 

I think the above is a good reason not to make the submit button for a form pulse by default, yes.  However, adding a CSS property for this is, I think, quite consistent with the direction WebKit has taken in the past.  Yes, developers could abuse it by making multiple pulsing buttons and failing to map them to the return key so they don't work, but so long as they have to explicitly turn on the behavior you aren't facilitating bad UI design, and there are any number of other ways to make a hideous, eye-bleedingly bad Web UI without pulsing buttons.  Since you obviously can't and shouldn't refuse to display Web sites that appear to be in bad taste, I think your obligation ends when a Web developer explicitly turns something on knowing perfectly well what it will do.

[Ahmad Saleem]

I think "pulsing form control" enhancement request now can be achieved through various advancement in CSS Animation etc. and I think this can now be marked as "RESOLVED WONTFIX" or anything appropriate. Thanks!

[Simon Fraser (smfr)]

Agree.