[whatwg] Web Forms 2.0 - select element

[Ian Hickson]

On Sun, 16 Oct 2005, Jon Levell wrote:
> 
> I have a dynamic web page that represents a table in a relational 
> database. Each row in the table is a row on the page. Some columns refer 
> to other tables, these columns have a select box at the top of the page 
> containing a list of all the values that entries in this column could be 
> changed to. If rows are selected and then a value in the select box is 
> chosen then that value is set for all selected rows.

This works today, no?

This is a frequent idiom in desktop UIs; you select a bunch of things, 
then select a value from a dropdown. If all the selected items had the 
same value, it is selected already (so selecting it again will have no 
effect). If all the selected items have not got the same value, then the 
dropdown will be blank, and selecting a value will make it apply.

(Checkboxes have a UI for this too, tri-state checkboxes. This currently 
isn't supported by HTML.)

It's pretty bad UI for a select to do something if you reselect the 
current selection, IMHO.

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