On 10/29/25 7:34 a.m., Chromestatus wrote:
*Contact emails*
[email protected], [email protected]
*Explainer*
https://drafts.csswg.org/css-ui/#caret-shape
*Specification*
https://drafts.csswg.org/css-ui/#caret-shape
*Summary*
The shape of the caret in native applications is most commonly a
vertical bar, an underscore or a rectangular block. In addition, the
shape often varies depending on the input mode, such as insert or
replace. The CSS caret-shape property allows sites to choose one of
these shapes for the caret inside editable elements, or leave the
choice up to the browser. The recognized property values are auto,
bar, block and underscore.
*Blink component*
Blink>CSS
<https://issues.chromium.org/issues?q=customfield1222907:%22Blink%3ECSS%22>
*Web Feature ID*
caret-shape <https://webstatus.dev/features/caret-shape>
*Motivation*
To allow authors to specify the desired shape of the text insertion
caret.
*Initial public proposal*
https://drafts.csswg.org/css-ui/#caret-shape
*Search tags*
caret-shape </features#tags:caret-shape>
*TAG review*
/No information provided/
*TAG review status*
Pending
*Risks*
*Interoperability and Compatibility*
/No information provided/
/Gecko/:
Positive (https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/1211) dholbert
commented - "Seems reasonable; I'd suggest a "positive"
standards-position. There are a handful of use-cases that use a
caret-shape: block sort of rendering that I can find - e.g.
gnome-terminal (which lets you choose between Block, I-Beam, and
Underline) and the graphical version of emacs. And it seems useful for
the web platform to offer the same sort of cosmetic flexibility in
matching that caret-style, for web developers who are designing a
web-based application inspired by these sorts of native applications.
(Masayuki mentions a case in
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1715487#c0 where this
sort of feature might make things easier for Korean IME users, too; so
there's potentially a usability benefit for some international
audiences.)"
Note that Masayuki-san also just filed
https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/13055, describing cases where
this feature might make IMEs harder to use.
/WebKit/: No
signal (https://github.com/WebKit/standards-positions/issues/484)
/Web developers/: No signals Bloomberg have requested this. Also see
above comments by dholbert on possible use cases.
/Other signals/:
*Activation*
No risk.
*Security*
None
*WebView application risks*
Does this intent deprecate or change behavior of existing APIs, such
that it has potentially high risk for Android WebView-based applications?
/No information provided/
*Debuggability*
Support in DevTools.
*Will this feature be supported on all six Blink platforms (Windows,
Mac, Linux, ChromeOS, Android, and Android WebView)?*
Yes
*Is this feature fully tested by web-platform-tests
<https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/main/docs/testing/web_platform_tests.md>?*
Yes
Tests are located at
https://github.com/web-platform-tests/wpt/blob/master/css/css-ui/,
including Parsing test: caret-shape-parsing.html; caret-shape: block
tests: caret-shape-block-001.html caret-shape-block-001-vrl.html
caret-shape-block-001-rtl.html caret-shape-block-001-rtl-vlr.html
caret-shape-block-001-rtl-vrl.html
caret-shape-block-001-rtl-sideways-rl.html
caret-shape-block-001-sideways-lr.html
caret-shape-block-001-rtl-sideways-lr.html caret-shape-block-002.html
caret-shape-block-empty-001.html caret-shape-block-fallback-001.html
caret-shape-block-zoom.html; caret-shape: underscore tests:
caret-shape-underscore-001.html; caret-shape overflow tests:
caret-eol-001.html caret-eol-002.html caret-eol-003.html
caret-eol-004.tentative.html.
https://wpt.fyi/results/css/css-ui?label=experimental&label=master&aligned,
in case others want to see the results at a quick glance.
*Flag name on about://flags*
Experimental web platform features
*Finch feature name*
CSSCaretShape
*Rollout plan*
Will ship enabled for all users
*Requires code in //chrome?*
False
*Tracking bug*
https://issues.chromium.org/issues/353713061
*Measurement*
Through usual CSS feature counters.
*Estimated milestones*
No milestones specified
*Anticipated spec changes*
Open questions about a feature may be a source of future web compat or
interop issues. Please list open issues (e.g. links to known github
issues in the project for the feature specification) whose resolution
may introduce web compat/interop risk (e.g., changing to naming or
structure of the API in a non-backward-compatible way).
/No information provided/
*Link to entry on the Chrome Platform Status*
https://chromestatus.com/feature/6106160780017664?gate=4913075303743488
*Links to previous Intent discussions*
Intent to Prototype:
https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/680b870d.170a0220.15e62e.0520.GAE%40google.com
This intent message was generated by Chrome Platform Status
<https://chromestatus.com>.
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