[webkit-dev] Clearing a textfield's 'autofilled' status on change, not focus

[Jens Alfke]

HTMLInputElement's 'autofilled' property is cleared when the field  
gets focused[1]. This has the visible effect of clearing the pale- 
yellow background color to white. Safari only seems to use this  
background-color highlighting for autofill of names, emails,  
addresses, etc., but Chrome also uses it for autofilled usernames and  
passwords in login forms.

In login forms at least, the current UI seems wrong[2]. That's partly  
because the form is often filled in automatically when the page is  
loaded (so a script that focuses a field on page load can end up  
clearing the highlight); and partly because the password is  
unreadable, so it's impossible to tell from inspection whether it's  
still autofilled or edited by the user.

Are there strong feelings in favor of the current UI, or would it be  
OK to change it overall so that the autofilled property is only  
cleared when the text is user-modified?

If the current UI needs to stay the same, could we compromise by  
changing the behavior of the property in login forms only, since such  
a change would have no visible effect in Safari?

—Jens

[1] See HTMLInputElement::handleFocusEvent, currently line 753.
[2] http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=38386