If the page has specified HTML 4.0 Strict DTD, and an select has no options with the selected attribute set, no options should be selected. Since it is not specified otherwise in the standard, we must assume that this includes selects that are rendered using combo boxes.

This is happening for bugzilla target fix combobox, can we move this to "sooner than m15"? Linux.and win32. I don't see "strict mode" in the page source here, new title?

I think that's a separate bug (possibly already filed) because the bugzilla TM combobox has the last option be a blank option that is selected when there's no TM, i.e.: <TD><SELECT NAME=target_milestone><OPTION VALUE="M1">M1<OPTION VALUE="M2">M2<OPTION VALUE="M3">M3<OPTION VALUE="M4">M4<OPTION VALUE="M5">M5<OPTION VALUE="M6">M6<OPTION VALUE="M7">M7<OPTION VALUE="M8">M8<OPTION VALUE="M9">M9<OPTION VALUE="M10">M10<OPTION VALUE="M11">M11<OPTION VALUE="M12">M12<OPTION VALUE="M13">M13<OPTION VALUE="M14">M14<OPTION VALUE="M15">M15<OPTION VALUE="M16">M16<OPTION VALUE="M17">M17<OPTION VALUE="M18">M18<OPTION VALUE="M19">M19<OPTION VALUE="M20">M20<OPTION SELECTED VALUE=" "> </SELECT></TD> If you're seeing M1 in bugzilla comboboxes (somewhat independently of the real TM), that could also be bug 17519.

Yes, 17519.

This is a suggestion for evangelism for people who don't like it that strict mode combos won't have option one selected by default. The main Greyhound Canada page <URL:http://www.greyhound.ca/> presents a list of over 400 places a bus trip can start in Canada in a "Choose your origin..." form that behaves exactly like the legacy browsers always have, while being correct HTML 4 - the first, prompting <option> is SELECTED : <select name=inOrigin size=1> <option selected value="">Choose your origin...</option> <option value="731075">100 Mile House BC <option value="730010">Abbotsford BC ... That's not exactly hard, is it?

After careful consideration, I've decided that I probably won't get this bug in for M12. Currently I have nearly 50 bugs scheduled for M13, so there is a possibility that this bug may need to be moved out farther still.

QA Contact update.

Moving to M15. pollmann has too many more urgent bugs for M13/14.

This might be mine....

Moving to M17

Rescheduling

This bug has been marked "future" because the original netscape engineer working on this is over-burdened. If you feel this is an error, that you or another known resource will be working on this bug,or if it blocks your work in some way -- please attach your concern to the bug for reconsideration.

Updating QA contact.

QA Contact Update

I think this bug must have been based on an outdated spec. From HTML 4.01: http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/interact/forms.html#h-17.6.1 "... authors should ensure that each menu includes a default pre-selected OPTION." It leaves *which one* to select undefined. Mozilla chooses to set the first option in a dropdown, and no option in a single select that isn't a dropdown. I won't close this yet to give people a little time to dissent. From discussions in IRC, though, this is what we should do.

Bulk reassigning form bugs to Alex

Since the spec specifies that a combobox with nothing selected should have some option pre-selected by default, and this bug directly conflicts with the spec, marking INVALID. If there's anybody out there, and you think this is in error, please reopen.

verifying