[whatwg] A mechanism to improve form autofill

[Maciej Stachowiak]

On Jul 25, 2012, at 11:21 PM, Aryeh Gregor <ayg at aryeh.name> wrote:

> 
> 
> I would also like to point out that this feature seems to overlap with
> not only type="" (as has been pointed out), but inputmode="" as well,
> and for that matter pattern="".  I think it would be quite unfortunate
> if authors found themselves writing things like
> 
>  <input inputmode="numeric" pattern="\d{16}" autocompletetype="cc-num">
> 
> because that's logically pretty redundant.  But maybe it's the only
> way to preserve our sanity, because it allows authors to figure out
> what combination of features they need for their inputs instead of us
> trying to figure out in advance what the possibilities are.


The specific combo of features you list is highly foreseeable. You may be right that there will be harder to predict scenarios.

the flip side is that a multidimensional matrix of features affecting form elements is more complicated to understand, more likely to be implemented in a buggy way, and more likely to be used wrong by authors.

Regards,
Maciej