WebKit Always Enables the Copy Menu Item in Every App
In most Mac apps, since the dawn of time, if there is nothing selected to be copied, the Edit → Copy (and Cut) commands are disabled. If you invoke the ⌘C shortcut while the Copy command is disabled, you hear an alert sound, letting you know that whatever you thought you were copying could not be copied because it wasn’t selected. That beep is useful context. This is proper behavior for all menu items — if they’re not available to do something, they should be disabled, and invoking a disabled menu item keyboard shortcut should beep. In any app that uses WebKit, since early in 2025, the Copy command is always enabled when a WebKit view has focus — but if nothing is selected, you get useless clipboard data that can’t actually be pasted anywhere. (And whatever was on your clipboard is now gone, or pushed back if you use a clipboard history utility.)
I decided to file a bug report on behalf of Gruber: Copy main menu item is enabled with no selection in the web page. I subsequently learned that the first appearance of the bug was January 2025 in the WebKit source code, February 2025 in Safari Technology Preview 213, and March 2025 in Safari 18.4, as a result of attempting to fix another bug, document.execCommand("copy") only triggers if there is a selection, reported in 2016, nine years prior!
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Sadly, my bug report was closed with the resolution “won’t fix.” The refusal appears to be based on a misunderstanding[…]
LOL that was fast.
Sometimes Apple is hilarious.
Previously:
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Doesn’t appear to be an Apple employee, just an OSS contributor. But if Apple does indeed change their tune, that’s not “hilarious” but “good”.
Sören, you are incorrect: the pull request comes from an Apple engineer, as indicated by multiple links.
And it's hilarious that the pull request came only two hours after Gruber published.
