Re: Paul Burchard on HTML 2.0 FORMs

"Daniel W. Connolly" <connolly@oclc.org>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 94 18:03:18 EDT
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From: "Daniel W. Connolly" <connolly@oclc.org>
To: Multiple recipients of list <html-ig@oclc.org>
Subject: Re: Paul Burchard on HTML 2.0 FORMs 
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In message <94Jul11.143128pdt.2760@golden.parc.xerox.com>, Larry Masinter write
s:
>Perhaps, given the incompleteness of SCRIBBLE and AUDIO, that perhaps
>they should be taken out of the 2.0 specification?

These are PROPOSED features. They are not, and have never been,
normative parts of the HTML 2.0 specification.

They are there for discussion only. In fact, since so many readers are
confused by the "proposed" stuff sprinkled throughout the 2.0 spec
that all that stuff is being separated out into an appendix.


>I'm thinking of some generalization where you say, instead of
>type="AUDIO", do:
>
>  <input type="interactive"
>        content="audio/basic">
>
>to request gathering audio data interactively, and instead of
>type="SCRIBBLE", you do:
>
>  <input type="interactive"
>        content="image/gif image/jpeg">
>
>to request gathering an image interactively.
>
>Finally, of course, I would want to wedge in something like
>
>  <input type="file" content="image/* audio/*">
>
>where the input desired was something that was presumably prepared
>offline and inserted as a file selection rather than interactively
>generated.

It appears from this example that your design makes the FORM author
the designer of the client user interface. One of the basic design
principles of the web is that the client should be smart enough to do
the interaction with the user in the "best" way, where best is subject
to local considerations.

The information provider has every right to perscribe what data
formats they will accept, but they should not (always) dictate how the
user composes that data.

Dan