Is it ok for appearance:base <select> not to require user activation before showPicker()?

[mfreed7]

What is the issue with the HTML Standard?

As we're working on the new appearance:base-select mode for <select>, we came across a question. The "old" (appearance:auto/none) select requires user activation before calls to showPicker(), mostly (I believe) for security reasons. Since the native picker can extend beyond the bounds of the viewport, it'd dangerous to allow it to be invoked directly by JS. However, in appearance:base-select mode, the picker is always just a popover, which can't extend beyond the viewport bounds. So it would seem that showing the <select> picker is no more dangerous than allowing popover.showPopover(), since they're essentially the same thing. So our plan was to remove that restriction when the select's ::picker(select) is set to appearance:base-select. But we wanted to see if there were any other reasons not to allow that?

[pshaughn]

What happens if appearance changes while the picker's open?

[mfreed7]

What happens if appearance changes while the picker's open?

That’s something that came up in discussion last week. To avoid possible oscillation or hysteresis, if the appearance property changes while the picker (auto or base-select) is open, the picker will be closed.

[annevk]

This would also require showPicker() to perform some kind of style resolution, which seems suboptimal.