Revision 515761 of Mozilla Quirks Mode Behavior

<p>The following is a <em>rough</em>&nbsp; list of the differences that exist between Mozilla's <a href="/en-US/docs/Quirks_Mode_and_Standards_Mode">standards mode and quirks mode</a> behavior.</p>
<h2 id="Miscellaneous_.26_Style">Miscellaneous &amp; Style</h2>
<ul>
 <li>All of the style rules in {{ Source("layout/style/quirk.css") }} apply only in quirks mode:
  <ul>
   <li>Orphaned <code>LI</code> has an <code>inside</code> bullet ({{ bug(1049) }}).</li>
   <li>Add padding if the very first node in an <code>LI</code> is another <code>UL</code> or <code>OL</code> ({{ bug(38832) }}).</li>
   <li>List bullets do not inherit the font size of the list ({{ bug(97351) }}).<br />
    Proposed to remove: {{ bug(648331) }}.</li>
   <li>Don't inhertit <code>font</code> properties into tables except for <code>font-family</code>.</li>
   <li>Make <code>TABLE</code> borders gray rather than using the foreground color.</li>
   <li>Collapse top margin of <code>BODY</code> and <code>TD</code> and bottom margin of <code>TD</code>.</li>
   <li>Collapse the bottom or top margins of empty elements ({{ bug(97361) }}).</li>
   <li>Support <code>&lt;PRE wrap&gt;</code>, <code>&lt;PRE cols&gt;</code>, <code>&lt;PRE width&gt;</code>.</li>
   <li>Orphaned <code>DD</code> has generated content <code>:before</code> instead of <code>margin</code> ({{ bug(5119) }}).</li>
   <li>Indent nested <code>DL</code> elements ({{ bug(8749) }}).</li>
   <li><code>MAP</code> acts like an <code>inline</code>, not a <code>block</code>.</li>
   <li>Give floated <code>IMG</code> a 3px <code>margin</code> ({{ bug(58899) }}).</li>
   <li>Residual style tags' size info does not take precedence over heading tags' size ({{ bug(77352) }}).</li>
   <li>Use<code> box-sizing:border-box </code>for most <code>INPUT</code> types and <code>TEXTAREA</code>.</li>
   <li>Give <code>FORM</code> a <code> margin-bottom:1em </code>({{ bug(41806) }}).</li>
  </ul>
 </li>
 <li>In quirks mode CSS <code>class</code> and <code>id</code> names are case insensitive. In standards mode they are case sensitive.&nbsp; (This also applies to <code>getElementsByClassName</code>.)</li>
 <li>Stylesheets linked in the document with an advisory mime type of <code>text/css</code> will still be treated as CSS even if the server gives a <code>Content-Type</code> header other than <code>text/css</code>.</li>
 <li>The CSS parser accepts colors not beginning with <code>#</code>, except in shorthands.</li>
 <li>The CSS parser interprets unitless numbers as <code>px</code> (except for <code><a href="/en/CSS/line-height" title="en/CSS/line-height">line-height</a></code> and any other properties where they have distinct meaning, and except in shorthands).</li>
 <li>In quirks mode, the CSS&nbsp;parser allows {} around the contents of style attributes ({{ Bug(99554) }}). This behavior is being removed in Firefox 27, for interoperability. ({{ Bug(915053) }})</li>
 <li>An empty string for the <code>background</code> attribute sets the background URL to empty only in quirks mode.</li>
 <li>The <code>topmargin</code>, <code>bottommargin</code>, <code>leftmargin</code>, and <code>rightmargin</code> attributes on <code>BODY</code> are supported only in quirks mode ({{ bug(9258) }}).<br />
  Proposed to apply in all modes: {{ bug(95530) }}.</li>
 <li>The <code>scrollLeft</code>, <code>scrollTop</code>, <code>scrollWidth</code>, and <code>scrollHeight</code> properties are relative to <code>BODY</code> in quirks mode (instead of <code>HTML</code>)&nbsp; ({{ Bug(211030) }}).</li>
 <li>HTML (1-7) and CSS (<code>xx-small</code> - <code>xx-large</code>) font sizes are calculated slightly differently (see {{ Bug(18136) }}).</li>
 <li>The <code>:hover</code> and <code>:active</code> pseudoclass will only be applied to links, images, and form controls. To match other elements, the selector must include a tag name, id, class or attribute.<br />
  Prior to Gecko 6.0 {{ geckoRelease("6.0") }}, there was no class check, so the <code>:hover</code> pseudoclass was not applied to class selectors; for example, <code>.someclass:hover</code> did not work.</li>
 <li>Quirks mode has <code>document.all</code> support (undetected).</li>
 <li>Images (<code>IMG</code> elements) without <code>alt</code> attributes sometimes display placeholder icons in quirks mode.</li>
 <li>{{ obsolete_inline("2.0") }} HTML colors were parsed differently up to Gecko 1.9.2 {{ geckoRelease("1.9.2") }} ({{ Bug(121738) }}).</li>
 <li>In quirks mode, the URL fragment<code> #top </code>scrolls to the top of the page when there is no such anchor.<br />
  {{ obsolete_inline("10.0") }} However, HTML5 requires this behavior, and starting in Gecko 10.0 {{ geckoRelease("10.0") }}, this also works in standards mode ({{ Bug(80784) }}, {{ Bug(93077) }}).</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="Block_and_Inline_layout">Block and Inline layout</h2>
<ul>
 <li><strong>[This quirk is present in <a href="/en/Gecko's_&quot;Almost_Standards&quot;_Mode" title="en/Gecko's &quot;Almost Standards&quot; Mode">almost standards mode</a>.]</strong> Line height (not <code>line-height</code>) calculations are different to fix {{ Bug(5821) }} and {{ Bug(24186) }} (some other issues are described in {{ Bug(22274) }}).&nbsp; See <a href="/en/Gecko's_&quot;Almost_Standards&quot;_Mode" title="en/Gecko's &quot;Almost Standards&quot; Mode">almost standards mode</a> for more details.</li>
 <li>There are a bunch of quirks to get percentage heights on images, tables, objects, and applets (etc.?) to "work" (the way they did in Netscape Navigator 4), even though CSS says that percentage heights should behave like 'auto' heights when the parent element doesn't have a fixed height. See {{ Bug("33443#c9") }}. See also {{ Bug(41656) }} and its duplicates. Some of these quirks may cause other effects (see {{ Bug(54119) }}).</li>
 <li>In quirks mode, the <code>FONT</code> element changes the color of text decorations specified on ancestor elements.<br />
  Proposed to apply in all modes: {{ bug(747517) }}.</li>
 <li>In quirks mode, <code><a href="/en/CSS/text-decoration" title="en/CSS/text-decoration">text-decoration</a></code> is propagated into floating and absolutely positioned elements.</li>
 <li>{{ gecko_minversion_inline("2.0") }} {{ geckoRelease("2.0") }} In quirks mode, <code><a href="/en/CSS/text-decoration" title="en/CSS/text-decoration">text-decoration</a></code> is <em>not</em>&nbsp; propagated into tables ({{ Bug(572713) }}).</li>
 <li>maybe {{ gecko_minversion_inline("1.9") }} {{ geckoRelease("1.9") }} When computing the minimum intrinsic width of an inline flow directly in a table cell (no blocks in between), it is assumed that it is not possible to break before and after an image (when otherwise it would be).</li>
 <li>{{ obsolete_inline("8.0") }} Prior to Gecko 8.0 {{ geckoRelease("8.0") }} <code><a href="/en/CSS/text-decoration" title="en/CSS/text-decoration">text-decoration</a></code> in quirks mode had line thickness and position adjusted on descendant text to match the descendant.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="Tables">Tables</h2>
<ul>
 <li><code>TD</code>, <code>TH</code>, <code>TR</code>, <code>THEAD</code>, <code>TBODY</code>, and <code>TFOOT</code> elements have the document background (and color?) applied to them (when the document background is specified in certain ways?) (see also {{ Bug(70831) }}). <strong>[This may have been an accurate description when written in June 2001, but no longer appears accurate. Should look into TableQuirkColorRule, re-describe, and figure out when it changed.]</strong></li>
 <li>The <code>empty-cells</code> property defaults to <code>hide</code> in quirks mode but <code>show</code> (according to CSS2.1) in standards mode (see {{ Bug(33244) }}) (though the correct fix would be to specify it on the HTML <code>TABLE</code> element in <code>quirk.css</code>).</li>
 <li>In quirks mode floated tables never move to the next "line" if they don't fit next to other floats, they just keep widening the page (see {{ Bug(43086) }}).&nbsp; To correspond, their width is computed as though only the remaining available space is the containing block width ({{ Bug(99461) }}).</li>
 <li>In quirks mode <code>colspan="0"</code> and <code>rowspan="0"</code> are intentionally not handled as described in HTML4 ({{ bug(9879) }}).</li>
 <li><code>hspace</code> and <code>vspace</code> are supported on <code>TABLE</code> only in quirks mode ({{ bug(41893) }}).<br />
  Proposed to remove: {{ bug(725646) }}.</li>
 <li>In quirks mode, when tables have a border style of <code>inset</code> or <code>outset</code>, the border color is based on the background color of the table or of the nearest ancestor with non-transparent background. <strong>[This may have been an accurate description when written in June 2001, but it no longer appears correct. I don't follow the code in nsCSSRenderingBorders well enough to tell, though.]</strong></li>
 <li>In quirks mode a fixed width specified on a table cell resets the <code>nowrap</code> attribute. If the <code>nowrap</code> attribute is present the cell width will never be smaller than the specified fixed width ({{ Bug(277232) }}).</li>
 <li>In quirks mode, tables with no rows/rowgroups have zero height even when a height is specified ({{ Bug(241161) }}).</li>
 <li>Something about the overhanging border (i.e., the half of the border that's outside the border-box) in border-collapse tables differs between quirks mode and standards mode. <strong>[See nsTableFrame::GetDeflationForBackground and figure out what really differs, and when it started differing.]</strong></li>
 <li>Gecko had {{ bug(248239) }}, where table cells acted as they had<code> box-sizing:border-box </code>applied for the purpose of the<code> height </code>property. This is fixed in Gecko 16 (Firefox 16) for standards mode but remains in quirks mode for compatibility with quirks mode behavior of other browsers.</li>
 <li>{{ gecko_minversion_inline("16") }} {{ geckoRelease("16") }} Since this version {{ Bug(338554) }} is fixed and <code>(-moz-)box-sizing </code>applies to table cells in standards mode, but quirks mode keeps the old behavior.</li>
 <li>{{ obsolete_inline("1.9") }} {{ geckoRelease("1.9") }} In quirks mode table cells with a border have a minimum width of one pixel.</li>
 <li>{{ obsolete_inline("1.9") }} {{ geckoRelease("1.9") }} The basic table layout strategy ignores padding (on what) in quirks mode.</li>
 <li>{{ obsolete_inline("1.9") }} {{ geckoRelease("1.9") }} The basic table layout strategy handles widths differently in some way.</li>
 <li>{{ obsolete_inline("2.0") }} {{ geckoRelease("2.0") }} In quirks mode <code>absmiddle</code> (handled incorrectly?) and <code>middle</code> (perhaps incorrectly as well?) are accepted as values of <code>align</code> on table cells, and <code>absmiddle</code>, <code>abscenter</code>, and <code>middle</code> are supported on tables (treated the same as <code>center</code>).<br />
  Removed in {{ Bug(559834) }} and {{ Bug(573322) }}, though <code>middle</code> and <code>absmiddle</code> in table cells work in all modes now.</li>
 <li>In quirks mode, percentage values are supported on the <code>cellspacing</code> attribute, but treated as pixels ({{ bug(106336) }}).<br />
  {{ obsolete_inline("13.0") }} {{ geckoRelease("13.0") }} This quirk has been adopted in standards mode now.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="Frames">Frames</h2>
<ul>
 <li>In quirks mode <code>marginwidth</code> and <code>marginheight</code> on a <code>FRAME</code> are propagated to the contained <code>BODY</code>.</li>
 <li>In a <code>FRAMESET</code> <code>cols</code>/<code>rows</code> specification <code>0*</code> is treated as <code>1*</code> (see {{ Bug(40383) }}).</li>
 <li>{{ obsolete_inline("????") }} The <code>scrolling</code> attribute on <code>FRAME</code> is handled differently.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="HTML_Parser">HTML Parser</h2>
<ul>
 <li>In quirks mode, we parsed HTML comments in a non-SGML way compatible with other browsers instead of treating "--" as the comment start and end delimiter.<br />
  {{ obsolete_inline("2.0") }} {{ geckoRelease("2.0") }} <strong>This quirk is now HTML5 conform and has been adopted in standards mode.</strong></li>
</ul>
<div class="originaldocinfo">
 <h3 id="Original_Document_Information" name="Original_Document_Information">Original Document Information</h3>
 <ul>
  <li>Author(s): David Baron, Boris Zbarsky</li>
 </ul>
</div>
<h3 id="See_also">See also</h3>
<p><a href="/en/Quirks_Mode_and_Standards_Mode" title="en/Mozilla's_Quirks_Mode">Mozilla's Quirks Mode</a></p>
<p>{{ languages( { "fr": "fr/Comportement_du_mode_quirks_de_Mozilla", "ja": "ja/Mozilla_Quirks_Mode_Behavior" } ) }}</p>