Re: What's missing from HTML forms?

wmperry@spry.com
Fri, 30 Sep 1994 23:29:07 +0100

Richard Everman writes:
> What's missing from HTML forms?
>
> 1 -- pressing a (tab?) key to move from current field to next field
> (or is that a client issue???)

this is a client issue. Currently, Mosaic 2.4(TUEV version), lynx,
emacs-w3, and spyglass mosaic allow you to do this. Not sure about cello
or any of the mac browsers.

> 2 -- valid an entry (FAVLT: from a very large table) for correctness

Some validation is part of the spec - that is what the TYPE specification
is for, but I don't think any browser but emacs-w3 bothers to check that
type of information. Mosaic/X will happily allow you to enter ABC into a
field of TYPE=INT or TYPE=FLOAT, or 123 into TYPE=DATE, or anything into
TYPE=URL.

How would you propose looking up the value from a very large table? If
more clients would 'remember' the form data you entered, you could just do
this all on the server side, but currently WinMosaic/AIRMosaic and a few
others have problems doing this, so the user has to retype in all the form
data if they get it wrong the first time.

One thing that would be really nice from a users point of view would be
checkboxes and radio buttons that you could set a label on. Right now, if
you have a form like:

[ ] Checkbox 1
[ ] Checkbox 2
[ ] Checkbox 3
^^^ You have to click exactly on the checkbox/radio button to toggle the
state, where standard UI behavior is being able to click on any part of
'[ ] Checkbox 1'. How about something like:

<input type="checkbox" label="Checkbox 1" value="primed">? Anybody else
think this would be useful?

-Bill P.