We submitted spec PRs to define contenteditable=“plaintext-only” for HTML and for the editing spec, along with wpt tests. We also updated tests for the contenteditable IDL attribute and we identified that Safari and Chrome was using the non-standard “-webkit-user-modify” property to implement contenteditable=“plaintext-only”, so we wrote wpt tests to verify it’s unsupported.
In 2020 and 2021 we helped the Google Rendering team with specification tests for several things, including improving the interoperability of the “plaintext-only” value.
Helping browsers to maintain consistent behavior when working with plaintext
Impact
When the change is implemented, this should allow browsers to maintain consistent behavior when working with plaintext content and events inside text editors. Gecko should get improved web compatibility from supporting the “plaintext-only” value, and interoperability between WebKit and Chromium will improve (e.g., handling of newlines).
More work like this at Bocoup


Contact Us
We'd love to hear from you. Get in touch!
P.O. Box 961436
Boston, MA 02196