Bug 16049 – execCommand('backColor') fails on collapsed selections

• Component: HTML Editing
• Status: RESOLVED FIXED

[Nick Santos]

Repro Steps:
1) Place the cursor in a contentEditable element.
2) Execute document.execCommand('backColor', false, '#f00') in JavaScript.
3) Type some text.

Expected Result:
The new text should have a red background.

Actual Result:
The new text keeps the same background.

Notes:
'backColor' works ok when text is actually selected.
If we replace 'backColor' with 'foreColor' in step #2, the new text is red as expected.
Verified on Safari3/Win and Webkit-Nightly/OSX.

[Mark Rowe (bdash)]

JSEditor.cpp shows that BackColor and ForeColor have different values for the enabledFn member of their CommandImp:

WebCore/editing/JSEditor.cpp:        { "BackColor", { execBackColor, enabledAnyRichlyEditableRangeSelection, stateNone, valueBackColor } },
WebCore/editing/JSEditor.cpp:        { "ForeColor", { execForeColor, enabledAnySelection, stateNone, valueForeColor } },


BackColor requires a range selection which would cause the command to be disabled for collapsed selections.  The fix here may be as simple as changing the enabledFn to enabledAnyRichlyEditableSelection.  A quick test suggests that this gives the same behaviour as IE on the test case.

[Eric Seidel (no email)]

So it sounds like all this bug needs is some understanding of what a change to enabledAnyRichlyEditableSelection would mean for the rest of the web. :)  I guess we solve that with a test case.

[Julie Parent]

+1 on fixing this. We have horrible, horrible hacks in place to get this working in the Google editor.  I'd love to get rid of them!

[Justin Garcia]

(In reply to comment #1)
> JSEditor.cpp shows that BackColor and ForeColor have different values for the
> enabledFn member of their CommandImp:
> 
> WebCore/editing/JSEditor.cpp:        { "BackColor", { execBackColor,
> enabledAnyRichlyEditableRangeSelection, stateNone, valueBackColor } },
> WebCore/editing/JSEditor.cpp:        { "ForeColor", { execForeColor,
> enabledAnySelection, stateNone, valueForeColor } },

Yikes that's completely wrong, BackColor should have enabledAnyRichlyEditableRangeSelection, and I don't know why ForeColor has enabledAnySelection, it should be disabled in a plain text region too.

[Justin Garcia]

> BackColor should have enabledAnyRichlyEditableRangeSelection

that should read "enabledAnyRichlyEditableSelection".

[Justin Garcia]

http://trac.webkit.org/changeset/34682