[whatwg] Re: Web Forms 2: Altenative to <select editable>

[Ian Hickson]

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004, Malcolm Rowe wrote:
>
> I know you're working up to a 'snapshot' release soon (how does that
> differ from a 'working draft', btw?)

By "snapshot" I mean a copy on the Web site that doesn't change as I edit
it. It is equivalent to what W3C people know of as a Working Draft. The
"current-work" URI is the "internal" copy that represents work progressing
on to the next snapshot.


> <select editable> [...]
>
> While I'm happy to see it return, I'm wondering whether what we're
> currently proposing is the best way to achieve what we want. For
> example, JavaScript isn't going to help me if I've got JavaScript
> switched off, or I'm on a non-JS-supporting UA.

Yeah. I added it back by popular request, but as you point out, it would
not be usable in down-level clients without JS enabled.


> I'd like to propose an alternate approach that solves the above
> problems, although it isn't perfect by any means.
>
> Add the 'data' attribute (maybe under a different name --
> 'autocompletedata'?) from the <select> element (section 6) to the
> <input> element. WF2 UA's could retrieve the <option> elements from the
> target URL and display them either using a drop-down combo box, or an
> autocomplete-style drop-down, or whatever.

Ooh, now there's an idea.


> The disadvantages of this approach are the following:
> * There is no way to specify the 'hinted' options inline.

Yeah, we'd need an inline solution as well. Maybe the URI can take a
fragment identifier or something.


> * Realistically, a non-WF2 UA will not able to use the 'hinted' values.

True...


> * We'd need somewhere to put the <option> elements in the DOM, and it's not
> clear where that would be.

As children?


> A second possible alternative approach would be to specify the hinted values
> inline in a delimited attribute (autocompletevalues="foo;bar;baz").

That's less good, IMHO.


> * Complete backward compatibility, even for UAs with no, or disabled,
> scripting capability.

Yes, very important.


> * You can provide 'hint' options for strongly-typed input controls, for
> example, <input type=email data=...>

Very useful.


I shall definitely look at this and other ideas on this thread.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
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