[whatwg] Spellchecking mark III

[Peter Kasting]

2009/1/27 Křištof Želechovski <kkz at mimuw.edu.pl>

>  The original use of the spellcheck attribute was to switch spell checking
> off
>
No, the _original_ use was to turn it on on fields where it would otherwise
have been on.

> (I think we both believe it should generally be on).  Using a private
> language for the control would do the trick equally well, without
> introducing a new attribute.
>
It wouldn't do it equally well, since semantically, it would mean "this is
of language <private>", which will be strictly inaccurate.

>   Avoiding an additional attribute is a gain,
>
Why?

> If the language detection libraries are as good as you claim, why is
> Firefox unable to use them in a way that is not annoying?
>
Because no one has had the time or energy to devote to this?  I have worked
full-time on browsers for a number of years now and have never seen any team
with the time to fix all the things that could or should be fixed.

> As I have already mentioned, GMail should provide an option for the sender
> to inform the recipient about the language used in the message, not for the
> client-side spell checker, but for the recipient.
>
Which no one will ever use, because users aren't going to take the trouble
to declare such a thing when human recipients can just _read the text_.
 After all, WE have built-in language detectors in our heads.

> We can drop the suggestion language="auto" if you wish, but it would be an
> explicit way of informing the user that he is allowed to enter text in any
> language he pleases.
>
As if users aren't going to just enter whatever language they please into
any field they wish?  We design software that has to accommodate people, not
the other way around :)

I have no idea whether there are better things web apps and UAs can do
w.r.t. communicating what languages are used where.  All I know is that both
in the abtstract and practically, whether I want a field spellchecked by
default is a distinct concern from which language(s) would be used to
spellcheck it.  Therefore I continue to see the spellcheck attribute as
distinct from (though possibly complimentary to) language.

PK
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