[whatwg] <input type="text" accept="">

[Matthew Raymond]

Anne van Kesteren wrote:
> If you just give some media type it's very unclear  
> what the particular side effects of such a media type would be.

   No more unclear that the potential side effects of |class|, given the
existence of microformats.

> Also,  
> it's unclear what text/html would mean for things like syntax  
> highlighting that are mentioned here given that you mostly edit a  
> snippet of it and not a whole document.

   Hmm. We may need a fragment MIME type or something similar, like
"x-fragment/html". I don't see what baring that has on syntax
highlighting, though. The MIME type would, however, be confusing with
regards to possibly triggering a WYSIWYG editing feature. My suggestion
would be that <input type="text"> and <textarea> always be for
text-based editing regardless of the MIME type, but this shouldn't
prevent the use of type-specific macros and syntax highlighting.

> For spell checking you might want to provide an external dictionary  
> file, because you think the UA might not support the language you  
> accept input in or you're using some really special terms not commonly  
> used.

   While the idea of supplying additional works for spell checking would
be nice (especially in forums that deal with specific topics that tend
to have their own vocabulary), I don't see the utility of enforcing the
use of a specific language via a vocabulary list. If you really want to
enforce the use of a language, I would think the |lang| attribute makes
more sense. Using a list of vocabulary words would just be a pointless
hack since you can't reasonably expect the UA to prevent submission
based on spelling. If submission was suppressed, the first time you'd
use a person's name in a text field, the submission would be blocked
until you removed it.