[whatwg] Suggestion: Implementation of Tabbed Forms

[Lachlan Hunt]

Matthew Raymond wrote:
> Lachlan Hunt wrote:
>>   Fair enough.  Perhaps a name that better represents what Ian Hickson 
>> calls them: mutually exclusive sections, which, BTW, is quite a good 
>> descriptive name.
> 
>    I have no problem using the term "section", although I don't know it 
> that will work as an element name, as I will explain a little later in 
> this message.

   I do.  It would clash with the <section> element in XHTML 2. 
Although they *may* be in different namespaces (I don't know what 
XHTML2's namespace will be, I couldn't find it anywhere in the current 
draft).  Both are variants of HTML, so it may cause some confusion, 
especially if Web Apps and XHTML2 were written in the same XML document.

   Maybe something like <exclusive> and <mxsection> (Mutually eXclusive 
section).  I think we actually need two elements: One as a container for 
all the sections, and another to represent 1 section. eg. in this format 
(not necessarily with these element names):
<mxsection>
     <exclusive><label>Exclusive Section 1</label>...</exclusive>
     <exclusive><label>Exclusive Section 2</label>...</exclusive>
</mxsection>

   But perhaps the container element could be a number of different 
elements, depending on the context of what the mutually exclusive 
sections represent.

>    The difference is that, in IE without such scripting support, the 
> date control degrades into a text input, so there is at very least a 
> control there to input the date into. With elements that IE doesn't 
> recognize, IE with scripting disables would render NOTHING, regardless 
> of what you put into CSS.

   That's not an issue for me, since these elements are only there to 
structure the content into exclusive sections, it shouldn't affect the 
usability of the document in any way, because, as far as I'm concerned, 
a well written document should be able to be understood, perhaps not as 
easily, regardless of the style applied.


>    Is it the |type| attribute you object to, or using an attribute for 
> declaring semantic relationship between the children of the <div> 
> element?

   Both.  I don't think we should be messing with the semantics of an 
element that was specifically designed to be a generic container 
element.  Also, the type attribute should not be used for anything but 
input elements, and for a resources content type.

-- 
Lachlan Hunt

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