Opera disregards CSS padding for input elements?

[Jesse Pelton]

Opera (7.11) adds some padding to either side of the text of an input
element whose type is submit. The padding appears to be fixed (unlike
IE, which adds a percentage of the text width), and overrides any
padding set with CSS. I'm not quite sure why Opera's otherwise
excellent CSS support is lacking in this case. (I sure hope it's not a
misguided attempt to emulate IE, which also behaves this way.)

I suppose I could reverse-engineer the padding and set the element width
using script, but that's just plain horrible. Anyone have a better
suggestion?

[Headless]

Jesse Pelton <j...@pkc.com> wrote:

>Opera (7.11) adds some padding to either side of the text of an input
>element whose type is submit. The padding appears to be fixed (unlike
>IE, which adds a percentage of the text width), and overrides any
>padding set with CSS. I'm not quite sure why Opera's otherwise
>excellent CSS support is lacking in this case. (I sure hope it's not a
>misguided attempt to emulate IE, which also behaves this way.)

Seems text width dependant to me:
http://www.headless.dna.ie/test/jesse.htm

Opera adding padding to the text is perfectly normal behaviour, you
shouldn't strive for pixel precise control over form elements imo, use
images if you absolutely can't live without more control.

Headless

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Email and filter list: http://www.headless.dna.ie/usenet.htm

[Jesse Pelton]

Headless wrote:

> Opera adding padding to the text is perfectly normal behaviour, you
> shouldn't strive for pixel precise control over form elements imo, use
> images if you absolutely can't live without more control.

I'm striving for maximum accessibility and efficiency. Using images
works counter to both aims. CSS was designed to offer "pixel precise
control," and I see no good reason why form elements (with the exception
for file inputs) should be exempted from that. But I'm actually after
"em precise control," not "pixel precise control," because my page
designs scale.

It's capricious for user agents to pad the content-width of certain
elements. One of the purposes of style sheets is to give users control
over presentation (with user style sheets). User agents that pad
content-width are seizing power that belongs to users.