Damian’s notes

If for some reason you want to replace HTML’s default ‘select’ element with a web component of your own, it is way more complicated than you might think. This article outlines some of the complications that will need to be addressed in your quixotic mission to reimplement the unimplementable.

The HTML standard is broadly accessible by default and a lot of front end code makes it less accessible in the name of aesthetics or branding or advertising. Here’s a sweary rant site on the subject.

Browsers will helpfully try to autocomplete text as you type it in to an HTML form. The autocomplete attribute allows the page designer to hint to the browser what sort of information is required—and also to suppress completion when the site provides its own automatic suggestions via JavaScript.