[whatwg] [WF2] The <icomplex> element

[Ian Hickson]

On Thu, 10 Feb 2005, Matthew Raymond wrote:
>
> ...if you were used to using <input>, would you use a tag with then same 
> attributes but a longer name and a required closing tag to do the exact 
> same thing? Especially if the specs say to use <input> in simple cases? 

Please don't make the mistake of assuming authors are logical creatures. :-)

If you had the option of writing a document that was valid and didn't rely 
on undefined error handling, or one that was invalid and might render 
differently in different user agents, which would you use?

If you had the option of writing one line to change the fonts and colours 
of your entire site, or of using one <font> element per bit of text, which 
would you do?

Obviously, many authors "choose" to write invalid sites and "choose" to 
use <font> instead of CSS.


> As for the editor, they can simply use <input> by default and give a 
> warning before saving if <icomplex> has no contents. (Can we require 
> contents??? My first guess would be no, but maybe someone knows more 
> than I.)

The specs require editors to generate valid code, but they don't.

(This is not an argument against <icomplex>, though, since you are right, 
we could require that editors do this. Editors that don't would just be 
non-compliant.)


> Well, one solution would be to provide an optional attribute that can 
> exclude <icomplex> from the .elements collection:

That (or it simply not being in the array at all) would be bad since the 
.elements array is used in other parts of the WF2 processing model. We 
could define it otherwise but that would be awkward. (It's already a pain 
for <input type="image"> for legacy reasons.)

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'