[whatwg] inputmode feedback

[Takayoshi Kochi (河内 隆仁)]

Just for a data point, lots of Japanese banks still make user type in
half-width katakana.

Here are some random examples:

http://www.tominbank.co.jp/for_kojin/mobile/topics_hankaku-kana.html
> 「受取人名（半角カナ）」は、半角30字以内で入力してください。

http://www.shinkin.co.jp/okayama/ibandhib/bizib/02_faq/faq_07.html
> これらのカナ略語は*全て半角文字で入力*して下さい。
> 実際の振込画面から振込先の会社名を入力する際は、*全て半角カナで入力*してください

http://www.yamanashibank.co.jp/anser-web/B-KM-009/help.html
> 半角30文字以内で入力してください

I am hesitant to get into endless debate how half-width-kana should be
here, but...

If most people can agree that it should not be widely used any more on the
web,
I would think that it should be intentionally added to the spec explicitly
stating that
"this mode is discouraged" in red and intentionally not implement on any
browser.
(half joke, half serious)


I think lobbying every IME vendor to drop half-width-kana is not worth it,
as half-width-kana will live in Unicode and the legacy probably will not
extinguish at least
until the end of my life, even with the speed of the internet.

Some brave IME implementor tried to exclude half-width-kana but it ended up
with
having third-party half-width-kana typing apps, which is kind of ironic:
http://kuracyan.net/archives/10751




On Fri, Dec 6, 2013 at 6:27 PM, Michael[tm] Smith <mike at w3.org> wrote:

> Yoichi Osato <yoichio at google.com>, 2013-12-06 15:46 +0900:
>
> > Our Google Japan members working around IME discussed about inputmode.
> >
> > Proposal:
> >  Remove "kana", "katakana" and "full-width-latin" from inputmode
> attribute.
> > Because above attributes and others are independent as others say.
> > For web developers that want to manage IME state like native
> applications,
> > the inputmode attribute lacks some modes
> > like "half-width-katakana".
>
> What modes other than "half-width-katakana" are we lacking?
>
> > But it might cause more confusing to add such attributes to inputmode.
>
> I think it might cause even more confusion to add half-width-katakana input
> support to any new IME-related API or UI, anywhere. In particular, it might
> cause people to think that half-width katakana is actually useful to them
> or needed for something these days. Which it's not, as far as I can see.
>
> Have you identified any actual current use cases for half-width katakana
> input?
>
> In particular, any uses cases for half-width katakana input on the Web?
>
> > We are discussing to propose IME mode management as new API.
> > Its mode contains "alphabet, kana, katakana, full-width-latin,
> > half-width-katakana" as a native OS provides.
>
> I don't think the fact that OS IMEs provide support for half-width katakana
> input means that it's necessary or useful for us to provide half-width
> katakana input support in any new IME APIs for the Web.
>
> If the goal is to have consistency with OS IMEs, then I think a better
> solution at this point would be to lobby OS IME vendors to finally drop
> support for half-width katakana input.
>
>   --Mike
>
> --
> Michael[tm] Smith http://people.w3.org/mike
>



-- 
Takayoshi Kochi