[whatwg] Quick thought on the Combo Box problem...

[Lachlan Hunt]

voracity wrote:
> My bad. I actually don't want a generic list element (be it <list> or 
> <ul>), I was merely speculating. I would prefer <datalist> because it 
> clearly specifies what the list is --- a list of data. (As opposed to a 
> list of summary points, or a list of links, or a navigation menu. <ul>

   Well, then what about a list of products, shirt sizes, instruction 
steps, a shopping list... or, hell, why not even a list of ice cream 
flavours or endagered species, etc.  My point is that you'll never be 
able to mark up every different kind of list there is, and in each of 
those completely random cases I mentioned above, it does not change the 
fact that they are either unordered or ordered lists, or maybe 
definition lists.  The actual type of list (whether it be data, summary 
points, etc...) should come from the content, however the structure, and 
the semantics of it being a list comes from the markup.

   As for navigation lists, <nl> is being introduced in XHTML 2, maybe 
Web Apps should include it aswell.

   For popup menus, however, Web Apps may have a requirement for a 
seperate semantic structure, other than ul, ol, dl, or nl.  However, I 
don't like the use of <popup> as has been suggested.  This reveals too 
much about how it is presented in a GUI.  How does anything /pop up/ for 
an aural, text or tactile user agent?  Perhaps something like option 
list <optlist>, or choice list <cl> because a popup menu generally 
provides a list of choices to the user to perform certain tasks (eg. 
cut, copy, paste), or set options (show/hide toolbars, word wrap, 
larger/smaller text size, etc.)

-- 
Lachlan Hunt

lachlan.hunt at lachy.id.au
http://www.lachy.id.au/