[whatwg] Re: several messages

[James Graham]

Matthew Raymond wrote:

>
> | <label for="d1">First Date:</label>
> | <dateinput id="d1" name="d1" value="2005-01-30">
> |  <select name="d1_month"><!-- Options --></select>
> |  <select name="d1_day"><!-- Options --></select>
> |  <select name="d1_year"><!-- Options --></select>
> | </dateinput>  

I haven't been following all the discusion about date formats but, 
subject to that proviso, this construct alone (without any inheritance 
of attributes) seems to address the major concern that has been raised 
about the datetime types (lack of a decent way of providing fallback). A 
WF2 UA would simply display:none all children of the dateinput element. 
The values corresponding to these child controls could be submitted, or 
not, depending on the whim of the UA developer (or rather on the 
particular limitations of their browser codebase). The user would have 
to look for a value of the <dateinput> control in the submitted fields 
to determine whether to use the WF2 or legacy values. That seems to be 
easy enough to implement that all vendors should get it right and it 
provides authors with a mechanism for usable fallback. But, as I said, I 
haven't followed the discussion, so I might be wrong.

-- 
"But if science you say still sounds too deep,
Just do what Beaker does, just shrug and 'Meep!'"

-- Dr. Bunsen Honeydew & Beaker of Muppet Labs