[whatwg] [WF3] Web Forms 3.0 Feature List

[Mihai Sucan]

Le Sun, 25 Feb 2007 11:58:20 +0200, Gervase Markham <gerv at mozilla.org> a  
écrit:

> Mihai Sucan wrote:
>> No. I really meant commas, not semicolons. This is because I use commas  
>> to separate multiple email addresses in the "To:" field in Opera M2.  
>> I'm quite certain it also works in Outlook,
>
> Incredibly (at least last time I looked) it only works when you check a  
> particular checkbox hidden deep in the prefs, which is off by default.  
> Why they don't just make it work, I have no idea. Gratuitious  
> incompatibility?

Yes.

Yet, it's long time since I used Outlook. I don't know it very well now.

>> One should also take into consideration the following:
>>  Given a list of emails (separated by commas or semicolons), e.g.:  
>> ana at example.com, lily at example.com, alina at example.com, spam at example.com.
>>  In Opera I can select this list and copy/paste it into the To field.  
>> This just works.™
>>  I find it hard to believe that does *not* work in Thunderbird.
>
> It does - but see below.
>
>> Now ... if the web application is made with a markup as you've  
>> provided, one has to manually copy/paste (or write) each email address  
>> in a single "To:" field. This is more than boring.
>
> Not if it does the simple, smart thing that Thunderbird does - if you  
> paste in a comma-separated list of addresses, turn it into a list of  
> single entries.

You've now added even more work: parse the list of emails, and add the new  
inputs for each email address.

Also, what Thunderbird does is not always desirable: having 50+,  
150+ emails takes too much screen space (too many rows). Keeping all of  
them in a single input is a lot more compact.

Isn't it easier, after all, to have a single simple <input type=emails> ?  
Parsed only once when the form is submitted (either server-side, or  
client-side, it does not really matter).

Point is, what you guys suggested is what I define "fancy" - it's too much  
work to do quickly, but I agree, it can be done and it's quite good.  
However for something simple such functionality needs too much JS+DOM  
work. The final result is basically allowing not only a single <input  
type=emails> (as I suggested), but multiple such fields, as many as the  
user wants - while all the work is done by the web author, not by the UA.



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