[whatwg] a few comments to Webforms 2.0 Call For Comments

[Matthew Raymond]

Olav Junker Kjær wrote:
> It makes UI sense that the user should be able to undo any input. OTOH I 
> like the ability to have a radiogroup in an initial state where no 
> option is selected. A solution could be to define that radiogroups are 
> *always* required. In that case there is no *valid* state that the user 
> cannot return to. If the author wants "no selection" to be valid input, 
> then it should be expressed as an seperate option like "(o) None of the 
> above".

    I'm not sure about the "required" part. For instance, you may not 
want to require specification of gender or race in one of those Federal 
statistics form thingies. On the other hand, I generally agree that it's 
bad UI to have a situation where there is not default selection. This is 
because someone could accidently select something and not be able to 
return the radio group to its original state.

    I recommend that, for HTML documents with the W2 doctype, there 
should always be a default option selected, regardless if that default 
is specified. Therefore, if none of the radio buttons are set, the first 
radio button in the group would automatically be set. If WF2 isn't 
specified as the doctype, we'll default to HTML 4.01 behavior, even if 
WF2 markup is used. The WF2 spec should recommend the use of a radio 
button "Not Specified" for a default value if the user does not wish to 
select an option.