Brad Fults wrote:
Currently, as far as I can tell, in HTML 4 [1] and HTML 5 [2], the
label element is defined as having inline content. When using the
implicit form control association pattern described in the HTML 4 spec
(e.g. a form control inside of the label element instead of or in
addition to using the |for| attribute), this becomes a problem.
Specifically, if one tries to place a textarea element inside of a
label element, modern browsers will insert the textarea as a later
sibling to the label in the DOM instead of as a child. This seems to
be due to the fact that the textarea is a block element and that label
can't contain it according to the spec.
Some software that I'm responsible for frequently wraps <label> elements
around <div> elements, purely because current versions of IE will not
apply display:inline-block to inline elements. While I guess that is
using a deviation from the HTML spec in order to compensate for a
deviation from the CSS spec[1], it's still something I'm not going to be
able to stop doing without a large amount of work.
For this reason, I certainly wouldn't mind label allowing block-level
children. Both Opera 9 and IE6 (the only browsers I have handy to test
right now) already support DIV as a child of LABEL correctly, per
Hixie's DOM viewer.[2]
[1] A part of the CSS spec that Microsoft pioneered, but still...
[2]
http://software.hixie.ch/utilities/js/live-dom-viewer/?%3C%21DOCTYPE%20html%3E%0D%0A%3Clabel%3E%3Cdiv%3Edsfgdsfgsdfgsdf%3C/div%3E%3C/label%3E
