Bug 6185 – CSS1: character styled with :first-letter is not selectable

• Status: NEW
• Component: CSS

[Joost de Valk (AlthA)]

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

[Joost de Valk (AlthA)]

Created attachment 5209 [details]
Testcase

[Eric Seidel (no email)]

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]

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.

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

[Mark Rowe (bdash)]

<rdar://problem/5688237>

[Joshua Lock (joshuagl)]

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)]

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]

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

[GregR]

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

[pavlos]

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