Bug 6185

Summary:

CSS1: character styled with :first-letter is not selectable

Product:

WebKit

Reporter:

Joost de Valk (AlthA) <joost>

Component:

CSS

Assignee:

alan <zalan>

Status:

RESOLVED FIXED

Severity:

Normal

CC:

ap, emacemac7, enrica, graeck, ian, joone, joshua.lock, julian, mickael.menu, mitz, mmaxfield, mrowe, pvinis, simon.fraser, webkit-bug-importer, zalan

Priority:

Keywords:

HasReduction, InRadar

Version:

420+

Hardware:

Mac

OS:

OS X 10.4

Bug Depends on:

43830

Bug Blocks:

58911, 311439, 26443, 311479

Attachments:

Description	Flags
Testcase	none
Demonstrate more details	none
Patch	none
Patch	none
Patch	ews-feeder: commit-queue-

Joost de Valk (AlthA)

Reported 2005-12-21 13:17:12 PST

When a first letter is styled through the :first-letter, it is not selectable.

Attachments
Testcase (578 bytes, text/html) 2005-12-21 13:17 PST, Joost de Valk (AlthA)	no flags	Details
Demonstrate more details (2.01 KB, text/html) 2012-06-13 20:11 PDT, Joshua Lock (joshuagl)	no flags	Details
Patch (61.73 KB, patch) 2026-04-05 15:24 PDT, alan	no flags	Details Formatted Diff Diff
Patch (64.35 KB, patch) 2026-04-05 19:48 PDT, alan	no flags	Details Formatted Diff Diff
Patch (66.26 KB, patch) 2026-04-10 12:26 PDT, alan	ews-feeder: commit-queue-	Details Formatted Diff Diff
Show Obsolete (2) View All Add attachment proposed patch, testcase, etc.

Joost de Valk (AlthA)

Comment 1 2005-12-21 13:17:39 PST

Created attachment 5209 [details] Testcase

Eric Seidel (no email)

Comment 2 2005-12-21 15:47:33 PST

This is a known issue that selections can not include generated text, which I assume the first letter is in this instance. The reason being that selections in WebCore are represented by DOMRange objects, and thus can not include anonymous render tree content. It's possible there is already a dup in bugzilla, there are also dups in Radar.

Julian Bennett Holmes

Comment 3 2007-02-12 18:32:35 PST

I'm pretty sure anything styled with first:letter isn't generated content: http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-content/ Generated content is stuff like "content: footnote;" and even list numbers: "li { display: list-item; list-style: decimal; }" But stuff that is written into the HTML and then styled with CSS isn't generated content.

mitz

Comment 4 2008-01-15 08:36:12 PST

*** Bug 16875 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Mark Rowe (bdash)

Comment 5 2008-01-15 08:41:22 PST

<rdar://problem/5688237>

Joshua Lock (joshuagl)

Comment 6 2012-06-13 20:11:04 PDT

Created attachment 147471 [details] Demonstrate more details I have begun trying to understand this issue some and have discovered several additional details: * If the selection begins with a :first-letter styled element the styled letter is not highlighted as selected (but is copied to the clipboard, more below). * However any following :first-letter styled elements are highlighted as selected. * If the selection does not begin with a :first-letter styled element all selected contents are highlighted. * The clipboard, once the selection is copied, includes the entire selection (rather than simply what is highlighted). * But the length of the selection, when testing the extentOffset property of the selection object, does not match what I'd expect. The attachment demonstrates each of the points above (except demonstrating pasting the copied selection).

Joshua Lock (joshuagl)

Comment 7 2012-06-13 20:12:38 PDT

I intend to start looking into fixing this bug next week so any pointers to relevant parts of WebCore for someone new to WebKit would be appreciated.

GregR

Comment 8 2014-02-13 10:18:25 PST

*** Bug 128705 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

GregR

Comment 9 2014-02-13 10:20:58 PST

Demo of issue: http://jsfiddle.net/P3TLx/6/

pavlos

Comment 10 2015-10-19 03:03:34 PDT

any work happening about all the contenteditable/first-letter issues?

alan

Comment 11 2026-04-05 15:21:38 PDT

*** Bug 311437 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

alan

Comment 12 2026-04-05 15:24:59 PDT

Created attachment 478931 [details] Patch

alan

Comment 13 2026-04-05 19:48:01 PDT

Created attachment 478932 [details] Patch

alan

Comment 14 2026-04-06 13:30:54 PDT

Pull request: https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit/pull/62142

alan

Comment 15 2026-04-10 12:26:51 PDT

Created attachment 478997 [details] Patch

EWS

Comment 16 2026-04-15 07:16:10 PDT

Committed 311287@main (1f01e406b70e): <https://commits.webkit.org/311287@main> Reviewed commits have been landed. Closing PR #62142 and removing active labels.

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