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by dstaley 2241 days ago
> Browsers can't use the OS control implementations, because the demands of DOM/CSS simply can't be handled by those native implementations. [...] It is very hard to get 100% right, which is why no browser does.

This is not correct. In instances where CSS doesn't affect the styling of the control, the browser can use native controls. As far as I know, every browser _except_ Firefox does this. For example, <select> elements in Chrome and Safari are native elements (albeit Win32 versions in the former on Windows).
2 comments
roca 2241 days ago
Chrome and Safari are absolutely not using the actual native control implementation. E.g. on Windows Chrome is not jamming a combobox HWND into its browser window.
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pcwalton 2241 days ago
> In instances where CSS doesn't affect the styling of the control, the browser can use native controls. As far as I know, every browser _except_ Firefox does this.

This is not true. It's not just the styling of the control itself that makes it infeasible to just stick an NSButton inside the browser's NSView; it's about the way a control interacts with everything else on the page.

Source: I work on browser graphics.

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