[whatwg] What exactly is contentEditable for?

Dimitri Glazkov dimitri.glazkov at gmail.com
Tue Aug 23 06:03:53 PDT 2005


I've been following this thread for a little while. I too think that
the contentEditable is not done quite right.

My biggest problem with it (and this was pointed out before) is that
it is a half-way effort: there is markup that enables the editing, but
there is no markup that provides any information about submission for
the edits. IMHO, this is incomplete. If you provide means for entry,
it shall be your responsibility to provide means for exit.

I was surprised to learn that WF2 spec does not support rich textarea.
I still can't figure out why.

Again, IMHO, the contentEditable attribute represents a shift of
paradigm in Web markup: it suggests that the actual markup of the page
could be the target of user manipulation. Prior to it, users were
confined to forms elements.

It's not that I mind the shift. But this shift is kind of huge, and  I
don't think it's wise to shift just bits and pieces.

:DG<



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