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

[Matthew Raymond]

Alexey Feldgendler wrote:
> On Sun, 11 Jun 2006 23:34:00 +0700, Lachlan Hunt  
> <lachlan.hunt at lachy.id.au> wrote:
> 
>>>  Enabling or disabling spell checking doesn't change the functionality  
>>> of an input.
> 
>> While the core functionality of allowing the user to enter text isn't  
>> changed, I'd consider spell checking to be part of the control's  
>> functionality, and so disabling it would change the functionality for  
>> the user.
> 
> There's nothing really bad in allowing CSS to control behavior to some  
> extent.

   There is if you want to maintain the separation of presentation and
behavior that CSS and Javascript/DOM were designed for.

> CSS is a good rule-based language, and there is a use case -- why  
> not reuse the CSS engine (selectors, cascading etc)?

   Because XBL2 already exists, it's more flexible, and it's not really
that hard once you know how to use it:

CSS:
| binding: url('example.xbl#binding1');

XBL2:
| <?xml version="1.0"?>
| <xbl xmlns="http://www.mozilla.org/projects/xbl/xbl2.html">
|   <binding id="binding1">
|     <handlers>
|       <handler event="click" button="0" action="LeftClick();"/>
|       <handler event="mouseup" button="1" action="MiddleUp();"/>
|       <handler event="click" button="2" action="RightClick();"/>
|     </handlers>
|   </binding>
| </xbl>

   Besides, people are already complaining about how the fact that CSS
is non-XML. Adding behavioral markup (beyond "binding") will just give
them more of a reason to bitch.

>>> But misspelled words in an input with spellchecking enabled are  
>>> underlined with a wavy red line (and the underlining style could even  
>>> be changed by CSS), and that's presentation.
> 
>> Arguably, yes, but allowing authors to alter the presentation of  
>> misspelled words from the UAs default settings would only introduce  
>> usability problems.  Users may not easily recognise any presentation set  
>> by the author as representing a missplled word.  UAs may provide a way  
>> for the user to set their preferred presentation using some UA-specific  
>> means, but there's no need at all for the author to have any control  
>> over it.
> 
> It's not a bigger problem than is the author's ability to style  
> hyperlinks. Such ability exists for years, but actually on most websites  
> there are no problems with spotting links. Though authors theoretically  
> can use CSS to make their sites unusable, almost noone does so.

   Unlike hyperlinks, which typically display the URL in the status bar
when you hover over them, spell checking has no discovery short of
right-clicking and hoping it shows the corrected spelling. Furthermore,
you don't have to follow a link, but you usually do have to correct your
spelling when submitting text that may be posted publicly. So which
one's more critical?