URL of that note: https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/forms.html#the-readonly-attribute:attr-input-readonly

@quanxunzhen -- Could you please provide the specific HTML file where the issue is reproducible which would help us triage the issue further.
Thanks in Advance.

In this HTML file, the text in both form controls should not be selectable per spec.

Deleted: disabled.html 307 bytes

disabled.html 307 bytes View Download

@quanxunzhen -- Thank You for the quick update.

Able to reproduce the issue using the html file provided in Comment#3 using Chrome Stable# 51.0.2704.106 and Chrome Canary# 54.0.2794.0 on Windows, Mac and Linux.

This is a Non-Regression issue seen from M30# 30.0.1599.101 (Official Build 227552). Changing the status to Untriaged so that the issue could get addressed.
Thank you.

Would like to work on this.

ramya.v, OK, I am happy to do reviews.

yoichio, you might be interested in this; I think this could be fixed with a rule like input:disabled { -webkit-user-select: none; }; WDYT since you're working on user-select?

The following revision refers to this bug:
  https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git/+/21d670d3e740b26dcdf63631d163c45a57d9531c

commit 21d670d3e740b26dcdf63631d163c45a57d9531c
Author: ramya.v <ramya.v@samsung.com>
Date: Fri Jul 15 07:37:04 2016

Content in disabled input field should not be selectable.

Spec: https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/forms.html#the-readonly-attribute:attr-input-readonly

BUG= 626581 

Review-Url: https://codereview.chromium.org/2145323002
Cr-Commit-Position: refs/heads/master@{#405717}

[modify] https://crrev.com/21d670d3e740b26dcdf63631d163c45a57d9531c/third_party/WebKit/LayoutTests/editing/selection/readonly-disabled-text-selection-expected.txt
[modify] https://crrev.com/21d670d3e740b26dcdf63631d163c45a57d9531c/third_party/WebKit/LayoutTests/editing/selection/readonly-disabled-text-selection.html
[modify] https://crrev.com/21d670d3e740b26dcdf63631d163c45a57d9531c/third_party/WebKit/LayoutTests/fast/forms/input-readonly-select-expected.txt
[modify] https://crrev.com/21d670d3e740b26dcdf63631d163c45a57d9531c/third_party/WebKit/LayoutTests/fast/forms/input-readonly-select.html
[modify] https://crrev.com/21d670d3e740b26dcdf63631d163c45a57d9531c/third_party/WebKit/Source/core/dom/Node.cpp
[modify] https://crrev.com/21d670d3e740b26dcdf63631d163c45a57d9531c/third_party/WebKit/Source/core/editing/SelectionController.cpp

Nice work!

"What went wrong?
It is selectable."

Man W3 really messed this one up. Are we actually 'fixing' this by making sure users cannot select the text that is on their screen? What about accessibility?? 

I never understood this part of the spec but it was just a curiosity because all browsers except Firefox did 'the right thing' and ignored the spec and just made the text that is on the screen selectable so it can be copied / pasted etc, like any user expects (wants). But now that it's no longer ignored, the spec is actually hurting users. 

input type=disabled was never really usable anyway because of the browser inconsistencies. Mainly due to Firefox not fixing this 13 year old bug https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=195361). There are a lot of people on that thread chiming in saying it is a bug, but now that the Chrome team has joined their camp they will never fix it ever.  :(

Sites should use 'readonly' to make text selectable.

On Chrome for Linux, Mac, Windows and Chrome OS you could use a user stylesheet with a !important rule to override the UA stylesheet.

The part of the spec quoted appears to be a non-normative note. At first glance, I cannot find any normative statement that controls should not be selectable if disabled. And that fits with the general trend of not prescribing UI affordances to browsers.

Probably we should update that non-normative note to remove the mention of selection.

Filed https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/1852 to track this on the spec side. In general I think it's up to Chrome which UI decisions it wants to make for text selection.

The spec change has now landed, replacing the inaccurate non-normative note with something which outlines the situation in more depth:

https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/forms.html#attr-input-readonly

> The difference between disabled and readonly is that read-only controls can still function, whereas disabled controls generally do not function as controls until they are enabled. This is spelled out in more detail elsewhere in this specification with normative requirements that refer to the disabled concept (for example, the element's activation behavior, whether or not it is a focusable area, or when constructing the form data set). Any other behavior related to user interaction with disabled controls, such as whether text can be selected or copied, is not defined in this specification.

So whether or not selection is allowed is up to Chrome, and is not a spec-compliance issue. So both the state before and after this bug are OK per spec.

Reopening this. The idea is that we would make text in disabled controls selectable again, like Firefox does.

Whoops update the title to track the proposal.

Let's close this issue, and discuss this if someone files a new bug.
r405717 was already shipped, and reusing this for opposite behavior changes would be very confusing.

> The idea is that we would make text in disabled controls selectable again, like Firefox does.

Firefox currently doesn't make text in disabled controls selectable.

Well that's ridicules - how do I style a disabled input field to allow the user to select the text?

#21 - you either make it read only and/or remove its name attribute (the id attribute is fine, if need be) so it is not submitted when you submit the form.

The following revision refers to this bug:
  https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git/+/e16d4aaa97a134e73510e2bce2f99359396f690f

commit e16d4aaa97a134e73510e2bce2f99359396f690f
Author: yoichio <yoichio@chromium.org>
Date: Fri Oct 28 02:37:23 2016

Revert of Content in disabled input field should not be selectable. (patchset #4 id:80001 of https://codereview.chromium.org/2145323002/ )

Reason for revert:
It caused regression:
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=656736

Original issue's description:
> Content in disabled input field should not be selectable.
>
> Spec: https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/forms.html#the-readonly-attribute:attr-input-readonly
>
> BUG= 626581 
>
> Committed: https://crrev.com/21d670d3e740b26dcdf63631d163c45a57d9531c
> Cr-Commit-Position: refs/heads/master@{#405717}

TBR=tkent@chromium.org,ramya.v@samsung.com
# Not skipping CQ checks because original CL landed more than 1 days ago.
BUG= 626581 

Review-Url: https://codereview.chromium.org/2455853002
Cr-Commit-Position: refs/heads/master@{#428261}

[modify] https://crrev.com/e16d4aaa97a134e73510e2bce2f99359396f690f/third_party/WebKit/LayoutTests/editing/selection/readonly-disabled-text-selection-expected.txt
[modify] https://crrev.com/e16d4aaa97a134e73510e2bce2f99359396f690f/third_party/WebKit/LayoutTests/editing/selection/readonly-disabled-text-selection.html
[modify] https://crrev.com/e16d4aaa97a134e73510e2bce2f99359396f690f/third_party/WebKit/LayoutTests/fast/forms/input-readonly-select-expected.txt
[modify] https://crrev.com/e16d4aaa97a134e73510e2bce2f99359396f690f/third_party/WebKit/LayoutTests/fast/forms/input-readonly-select.html
[modify] https://crrev.com/e16d4aaa97a134e73510e2bce2f99359396f690f/third_party/WebKit/Source/core/dom/Node.cpp
[modify] https://crrev.com/e16d4aaa97a134e73510e2bce2f99359396f690f/third_party/WebKit/Source/core/editing/SelectionController.cpp

The following revision refers to this bug:
  https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git/+/4483c37f9c09cb3fc67de11a9833881918980dc8

commit 4483c37f9c09cb3fc67de11a9833881918980dc8
Author: Kent Tamura <tkent@chromium.org>
Date: Mon Oct 31 00:47:18 2016

Merge "Revert of Content in disabled input field should not be selectable. (patchset #4 id:80001 of https://codereview.chromium.org/2145323002/ )" to M55 branch

Reason for revert:
It caused regression:
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=656736

Original issue's description:
> Content in disabled input field should not be selectable.
>
> Spec: https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/forms.html#the-readonly-attribute:attr-input-readonly
>
> BUG= 626581 
>
> Committed: https://crrev.com/21d670d3e740b26dcdf63631d163c45a57d9531c
> Cr-Commit-Position: refs/heads/master@{#405717}

TBR=tkent@chromium.org,ramya.v@samsung.com
BUG= 626581 

Review-Url: https://codereview.chromium.org/2455853002
Cr-Commit-Position: refs/heads/master@{#428261}
(cherry picked from commit e16d4aaa97a134e73510e2bce2f99359396f690f)

Review URL: https://codereview.chromium.org/2461293002 .

Cr-Commit-Position: refs/branch-heads/2883@{#379}
Cr-Branched-From: 614d31daee2f61b0180df403a8ad43f20b9f6dd7-refs/heads/master@{#423768}

[modify] https://crrev.com/4483c37f9c09cb3fc67de11a9833881918980dc8/third_party/WebKit/LayoutTests/editing/selection/readonly-disabled-text-selection-expected.txt
[modify] https://crrev.com/4483c37f9c09cb3fc67de11a9833881918980dc8/third_party/WebKit/LayoutTests/editing/selection/readonly-disabled-text-selection.html
[modify] https://crrev.com/4483c37f9c09cb3fc67de11a9833881918980dc8/third_party/WebKit/LayoutTests/fast/forms/input-readonly-select-expected.txt
[modify] https://crrev.com/4483c37f9c09cb3fc67de11a9833881918980dc8/third_party/WebKit/LayoutTests/fast/forms/input-readonly-select.html
[modify] https://crrev.com/4483c37f9c09cb3fc67de11a9833881918980dc8/third_party/WebKit/Source/core/dom/Node.cpp
[modify] https://crrev.com/4483c37f9c09cb3fc67de11a9833881918980dc8/third_party/WebKit/Source/core/editing/SelectionController.cpp

 Issue 674951  has been merged into this issue.

Should this be re-opened, since the fix was reverted?