[whatwg] Safari-compatible <input type="search">

[Kornel Lesinski]

On Tue, 30 Sep 2008 12:40:23 +0100, Andy Lyttle <whatwg at phroggy.com> wrote:

> I would like Apple's <input type="search"> adopted as an official  
> standard, maintaining Safari compatibility.

> Comments?

I like type=search.

Special search box style is used throughout Mac OS X and Mac-centric sites  
try to fake it with borderless inputs that often end up looking broken.

Windows has now a standard search box look too, so type=search would be  
good for intuitively looking search boxes across platforms.

I'm in favor of placeholder on <input type=search>. It may be a bad UI,  
but it is used very often regardless. Standarizing it at least gives more  
control to UAs and frees authors from writing potentially buggy scripts (I  
haven't figured out yet how to write one that's not annoying on Opera  
Mini).


I suggest ignoring onsearch and incremental attributes. They can be  
replaced with combination of oninput and onchange.

I also don't like results and autosave. They're a bit confusing (if  
autosave=yes became popular, it would cause a mess). It can be abused  
(autosave=google's + script that puts site's own keywords just before user  
submits search). Such things are best controlled by browsers/users. To  
disable autosave authors could use autocomplete=off.

-- 
regards, Kornel Lesinski