window.confirm - space vs enter key on Cancel button

Question

I've stumbled upon a strange issue and I have two questions: 1) is it a bug in browsers` implementation (checked in Chrome, Firefox, Safari)?; 2) is there a workaround available?

Steps to reproduce:

1. User window.confirm()
2. Navigate the popup and use Space/Enter key on visible buttons.

And here's the results:

1. Hitting enter key on OK button - returns true
2. Hitting space key on OK button - returns true
3. Hitting space key on Cancel button - returns false
4. Hitting enter key on Cancel button - returns true

The last case is the one I'm wondering about. Why targeting Cancel button with an enter key is equal to hitting OK button? I haven't found any hint in the spec: https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/timers-and-user-prompts.html#dom-confirm

Answer 1

This is a standard UI convention for Yes/No dialog boxes that should be consistent across your operating system. It is nothing specific to JavaScript prompts.

Space activates the focused button.

Enter actives that default button.