[whatwg] RFC: <input type="username">

[Ian Hickson]

On Mon, 2 Aug 2010, Dirk Pranke wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 6:12 PM, Ian Hickson <ian at hixie.ch> wrote:
> >
> > This thread primarily discussed ways to allow users to log in and out 
> > of sites, possibly through improvements to the forms model.
> >
> > This is an area that seems to be under a lot of active research, so 
> > it's probably premature to change the HTML spec at this point. I 
> > haven't introduced any new form types.
> >
> > Some comments on a few of the specific points raised:
> >
> > On Tue, 4 May 2010, Eitan Adler wrote:
> >>
> [...]
> >> 3) Currently autofill for usernames looks for something like
> >> id="username" or name="username". However on certain websites this
> >> fails. Furthermore some websites offer a "find other members" feature
> >> where you could type in a username. I've often seen these fields filled
> >> in automatically with my name.
> >
> > Why would sites where this doesn't work today use a new feature to do 
> > this? Surely they can do this now already, so why aren't they doing 
> > it?
> 
> I suspect that this is usually a result of ignorance. I don't think many 
> content authors are aware of how form-fillers work.

That's possible. The solution then is to provide more documentation on 
this, rather than add more features that would continue to not be well 
understood.


> > RFC3106 has specified this since 2001, and has been implemented for a 
> > long time: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3106
> >
> > It didn't seem to do much to make adoption happen more quickly.
> >
> > Why would this new idea make things go faster?
> 
> I'm not sure what you mean by "has been implemented for a long time".

I mean some browsers have supported it.


> Suggesting that people follow 3106 instead of creating a new input type 
> (which is I think what you're doing) is certainly one possible solution 
> here.

I think we should at least try that first, given the potential cost of 
creating new features.


> Perhaps the WHATWG needs an experimental track in addition to a 
> standards track?

That's what browsers and extensions like Gears are. :-)

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'