[whatwg] default action/button for forms
Ian Hickson
ian at hixie.ch
Sun Mar 20 17:26:11 PST 2005
On Sun, 13 Feb 2005, Matthew Raymond wrote:
> >
> > 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|:
The "autofocus" case is easy because it is just saying "when it is
inserted, do something". The default button case is harder because it
isn't doing anything until a lot later, when the form is rendered or
someone invokes the default action.
Thus for autofocus, you can define it in terms of a DOM call that happens
when the element is inserted, but for default, you need a way to be able
to look up the default button easily.
Thus an attribute on the form is easier.
Having said that, I agree that an attribute on a button would be easier to
author.
> 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>).
HTML also has a history of problems stemming from this design pattern (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.
With <command> it is easier since you process the menu at a fixed time
without exposing the intermediate steps to the DOM, so you can define
things like the error handling of multiple defaults (more) easily.
> | <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"?
Because in SGML, you can omit the attribute name and just give the value,
as in:
<input default submit name="action" value="Add">
Not that anyone correctly supports that or anything.
--
Ian Hickson U+1047E )\._.,--....,'``. fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A /, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
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