[whatwg] File Upload Control

[Ian Hickson]

On Tue, 20 Jul 2004, Smith, Rolland wrote:
>
> In the past while trying to FULLY customize a UI with CSS the file
> upload control has been very reluctant to cooperate in addition to the
> nature of its display in that the text box for the filename is part of
> the Browse button that is used to search for files desired to upload.
> What my suggestion/request is, is that the file upload control be fully
> customizable by CSS just as the regular form textboxes are. Furthermore
> if there was a way to style the button and the textbox separately that
> would be an extreme help, as well as making the browse button an IMAGE
> instead of the standard text display button with a gray background and
> just "Browse" on it.

File upload controls should never be stylable. If they were stylable, it 
would be too easy to trick users into uploading private files, by making 
them think they were normal text fields, for example.


> Also, as I read the current draft spec (correct me if I'm wrong), but it
> says to me that in the new spec you'd be able to specify a Number of
> files to upload per file upload control. Does this mean that for
> whatever number is entered (say 3) that we'd see 3 textboxes/browse
> buttons for 3 file uploads and that each of those must be (validation
> built-in?) filled out with a proper file path to an existing file?

No, it would just let the user pick three files using the Browse button.


> I would think that the validation should be an option that could be 
> toggled on and off and when it is "OFF" that it is not required that you 
> must have 3 files attached and that the user could specify only 1 if 
> they wanted to. If I have this right, the way the draft spec is 
> currently written you'd be improving on the control (allowing more files 
> to be selected/uploaded per upload control) while causing a bit of 
> undesired functionality (once the number of files is specified THAT many 
> files are required to be entered) at the same time.

You can specify a minimum number and a maximum number.

Cheers,
-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'