Here I would like to make a proposal to add a new tag, LOAD (or whatever
name you think best fit), to fill-out FORM. This tag is to be treated
the same way as the INPUT tag, EXCEPT that the input value is taken as
the name of a file name, so instead of the input value itself, the content
of the file is uploaded and is submitted by the browser.
Fill-out FORMs give users a convenient way to submit data. But so far,
mosaic, netscape and lynx all lack the feature to take an input as the
name of a local file and upload the contents of the file as the actual
value for submission. So for large input, which usually is already in
a file, users have to rely on their OS or browser's copy/paste feature
to avoid tedious, error prone typing (but it's still easy to introduce
errors using copy/paste). With the new tag, it would be much much easier
for users to submit large data.
Submitting large data via fill-out forms has become very common. For example,
NIH's National Center for Biological Informatics accepts submission of new
DNA sequences into GenBank database through fill-out forms (its URL is
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/BankIt/index.html). I think all other
database centers will follow if not already done so yet.
The new tag may include several TYPEs such as "ftp", "http", "gopher", etc.,
so the input does not have to be the name of a local file (then the question
is should the browser get the file and submit its content or just submitt
the remote address and let the http daemon at the server site get the file?).
Thanks for your attention.
Yours sincerely,
-ping