[whatwg] Repetition model changes

[Matthew Raymond]

Ian Hickson wrote:
> Is the number of empty blocks ever critical? As in, does the fact that a
> non-WF2 UA only gets one empty row really matter?

    No, it's just that it's a pain for the user to have to delete an
item simply because they wanted to edit existing items and save their
edit. Otherwise, the server can simply generate the extra blocks itself,
but to have no template blocks for a non-WF2 UA, the server must get rid
of the template as it is defined in the current draft.

> The point is to not _require_ that the authors require WF2-enabled
> users; the features in WF2 can be used while still supporting legacy UAs.
> 
[Snip!]
> 
> Yes, indeed WF2 has several features that only "work" in a WF2 UA,
> degrading to just being completely ignored in a non-WF2 UA. "Graceful
> degradation" means that it doesn't _break_, or display garbage, in legacy
> UAs, not that it be fully functional. (e.g. <button action=""> will be
> totally ignored in legacy UAs, falling back on the form's action
> attribute. And the form="" attribute will only ever work in WF2 UAs,
> degrading to using the ancestor form element in non-WF2 UAs.)

    I see. So if we wanted to take all the elements used to do context
menus in XUL and put them in, say, WebApps 1.0, we could?...

<popupset>
   <popup id="clipmenu">
     <menuitem label="Cut"/>
     <menuitem label="Copy"/>
     <menuitem label="Paste"/>
   </popup>
</popupset>

<input type="text" value="Sample text." context="clipmenu">

> Well, the data="" feature in WF2 isn't far off what you are presumably
> proposing above. You can, using data="", prepopulate a form, including
> repetition templates, from an external data source. Of course, this only
> works in WF2 UAs, legacy UAs would just display a blank form; the feature
> degrading to simply being ignored.

    It would be nice to have is a more comprehensive template system.
Right now, the template system in the draft only lets you build lists.
Then again, it's hard for me to think of a non-list example where
templates couldn't be replaced using XBL.