[whatwg] WF2: Non-validating submit buttons

[Martin Atkins]

Anne van Kesteren wrote:
> On Wed, 04 Apr 2007 14:05:44 +0200, Christian Schmidt 
> <whatwg.org at chsc.dk> wrote:
>>>  It would be useful to be able to mark certain submit buttons as 
>>> non-validating.
>>
>> There appears to be at least some demand for such a feature, and so 
>> far there has been no negative responses. What is the next step?
> 
> Providing some compelling usecases.
> 

I thought we'd already done that. Here's a quick summary of the 
use-cases presented so far, though of course whether or not they are 
"compelling" is up to the reader to decide:

  * For "cancel" buttons where the server-side app just throws the 
submitted form data away, it's pointless to validate it client-side.

  * Allowing the user to submit an unfinished form to the server to be 
saved for later completion.

  * A "preview" button that allows the user to see the results of what 
has been completed so far without completing the entire form.

  * Buttons that trigger round-trips to the server to alter the form in 
some way.

Of these, the first and last are the ones that I find most compelling as 
they are two things that are done in the wild on the web today that are 
broken — or at least made a lot more tricky — by the use of Web Forms 
client-side declarative validation.