[whatwg] Structured option element

[Andrew Fedoniouk]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Filip Likavcan" <filip.likavcan at gmail.com>
To: <whatwg at whatwg.org>
Sent: Saturday, August 25, 2007 10:57 AM
Subject: [whatwg] Structured option element


> Hi,
> 
> I would like to propose "structured" <option> element. The <option>
> element is now described (=displayed in select box) only by simple
> text value. The problem is, that in "real" world the option acts like
> object with more properties. There are many cases in which options are
> described by more than one property. For example the list of URL's in
> the Firefox displays for each item its URL and page title. Another
> example: I'm developing e-shop backend application for sellers. Seller
> can create/edit an order, manage products on stocks and generate
> invoices. When the seller wants to add new product into the order, it
> is important for him to know how many products are there on each
> stock. Products are displayed in <select> as its options. It would be
> great if I could specify multiple properties for the option and the
> interface would somehow reflect it. Something like this:
> 
> <select name="products">
>  <option id="1">
>    <property>Product's name</property>
>    <property>X</property>
>    <property>Y</property>
>    ...
>   <property>Z</property>
>  </option>
> </select>
> 
> [Product's name | X | Y | Z]
> 
> Where X, Y, Z represent the numbers of products on stocks. "|"
> represents a column border. Columns should be displayed as columns in
> tables (covering entire width of table, able to have specified exact
> width, padding, ...).
> 
> Maybe this is already covered somehow. I tried to find something in
> older e-mails in this mailinglist, but I haven't found anything.
> 

As an ultimate solution:

To allow <select> to have arbitray markup inside and
make it aware about attribute role="option" so you would define
your select as: 

<select name="products">
  <table>
    <tr role="option" value="1">
       <td>Product's name</td>
       <td>X</td>
       <td>X</td>
       <td>Y</td>
       <td>Z</td>
 </tr>
 .... 
 <table>
</select>

Having this you will be able to define many things:
http://www.terrainformatica.com/htmlayout/images/selects3.jpg
http://www.terrainformatica.com/htmlayout/images/selects2.jpg
http://www.terrainformatica.com/htmlayout/images/grid1.jpg

Andrew Fedoniouk.
http://terrainfromatica.com