[whatwg] default action/button for forms

[Matthew Raymond]

Michael Gratton wrote:
> On Fri, 2005-02-11 at 11:52 -0500, Matthew Raymond wrote:
>>    I'd prefer something like this:
>>
>>| <form action="http://somesite.com/prog/adduser" method="post">
>>|   <input type="text" name="who">
>>|   <input type="submit" name="action" value="Remove">
>>|   <input default type="submit" name="action" value="Add">
>>| </form>
> 
> Sounds reasonable, it does allow some ambiguity however (what happens if
> there a multiple defaults in one form?)

    I just assumed we'd handle it the same way as |autofocus|:

| Authors should avoid setting the autofocus attribute on multiple
| enabled elements in a document. If multiple elements with the
| autofocus attribute set are  inserted into a document, each one will
| be processed as described above, as they are inserted. This means that
| during document load, for example, the last focusable form control in
| document order with the attribute set will end up with the focus.

    So the last button of the form set as the default would be default.

 > and the default button to my
> mind seems more like a property of the form then a control.

    I disagree. In Visual Basic, for instance, the value is set on the 
button, not the form. (Although, in VB, the environment automatically 
sets the value of the |default| property on all other buttons to false. 
I suppose HTML editors could follow suit.) Furthermore, HTML has a 
history of putting mutually exclusive values on items rather than the 
container of the items (see <option selected> and <input type="radio" 
checked>).

    Also, in WA1, the <command> element has an attribute of the same 
name that does roughly the same thing.

> But hey, I'd be happy with either.

    Good to know. :)

Henri Sivonen wrote:
 > On Feb 11, 2005, at 18:52, Matthew Raymond wrote:
 >>| <input default type="submit" name="action" value="Add">
 >
 > As a practical matter, it would be better to avoid new minimized
 > attributes in order to avoid changes to tag soup processors that
 > handle a closed list of attributes as special minimized cases.

    Yeah, WA1 does the same thing with <command>, so we can just fall in 
line:

| <input default="default" type="submit" name="action" value="Add">

    Hmm. On a side note: What was our motivation for making people put 
the name of the property as the value in these cases? Why not just 
"true"? Not that important, though...