[whatwg] Comments to Web Forms 2.0 downloaded 2004-09-18 (HTML email)

[Mattias Waldau]

Paul Norman wrote:

> On 20-Sep-04, at 8:24 AM, Mattias Waldau wrote:
> 
> 
>>It should be possible to use ENTER to navigate through fields (Major)
>>
>>All software except browser just Enter to jump to the next control. 
>>For some reason web form uses tab only and Enter means submit. This 
>>might seem to be a small thing, but I know from personal experience 
>>that this is a showstopper form some companies.
>>

>>Therefor it would be nice to if Enter could be used for navigation.
> 
> All the software I've used uses enter dismiss dialog boxes or forms
> except for when the user might want to have enter as content (e.g. ICQ)
> No software I've used uses enter to switch between fields of a form
> except for Lynx where you can sometimes use enter. 
> 
> 

You talk about MS Windows/Motif/Mac like applications, and they have the 
ENTER behavior you talk about. However, if you look at OLDER 
applications you see that enter means next field. Why do you think the 
enter key is placed on the numeric keypad? Or, why not try to press 
Enter inside an Excel spreadsheet, you see a different behavior.

I tried using event listeners, but I had to add them to EVERY control on 
the form, which is plain stupid. Is there a better way?

-- Mattias