I apologize in case this has been discussed before - the list archive
search seems to be broken right now, as it does not find any matches
when searching for "color".
I just noticed a note in the spec of input type=color
http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/states-of-the-type-attribute.html#color-state-%28type=color%29:
"Note: In this state, there is always a color picked, and there is no
way to set the value to the empty string."
If I understand the spec correctly, entering no value defaults to
#000000, thus the required attribute does not apply. What are the
reasons for this? I am sure there were good reasons to specify it this
way, anyway I don't see them right now. "Not selected" is actually very
different from "black".
I see the following reasons for allowing the empty string:
1. An application might want to give the user the choice of not
selecting a color. Not specifying a color is the easiest way to state
that the default color should be used, be it black or other.
2. An application might want to force the user to make an explicit
selection. It may not be able to distinguish whether "black" was
explicitly selected, or the user forgot to specify a color.
3. Applications need to deal with the empty string anyway, as legacy
browsers show a text field.
