autofocus on the search input

[Mottie]

Adding HTML5 autofocus to the search input would be a nice feature! Especially when searching the api.

Thanks!

[scottgonzalez]

I don't think we want to autofocus search on most sites.

[scottgonzalez]

Actually, this would work sort of like a built-in, auto-activated skip to content link for screen readers :-)

[scottgonzalez]

@ajpiano @rdworth @jzaefferer @dmethvin @kswedberg Thoughts? It's a quick fix, but I want to make sure everyone is on board. For pages where the search form appears multiple times (like the plugins site home pages), it will be the last occurrence of the field that gets focused.

[dmethvin]

Wouldn't you want the first (most likely visible) one to be focused?

[scottgonzalez]

Well, whatever gets focused is guaranteed to be visible. I was just stating what will happen if we use autofocus (tested in Chrome). We use a template for the search form, regardless of where on the page it shows up. So even the two very differently styled search forms on the plugins site are using the same code. I believe this is technically invalid. We can use JavaScript to move focus, but I hate the idea of that.

[rdworth]

It's not valid, per http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/association-of-controls-and-forms.html#autofocusing-a-form-control:-the-autofocus-attribute "There must not be two elements with the same nearest ancestor autofocus scoping root element that both have the autofocus attribute specified." Since the elements are not in a dialog, the document is considered both their "nearest ancestor autofocus scoping root element", unless I've misread.

[dmethvin]

What part of "nearest ancestor autofocus scoping root element" don't you understand? 😈

[scottgonzalez]

Closing per discussion in #229.