Consistent use of the end tag would make the client side easier but it is
an option and this doesn't affect the annotation of the begin tag as you
have shown.
> > TEXTAREA fields should always word wrap exactly as a word processor, and
> > are aesthetically, and in human factors, exactly what a word processor
> > user would expect.
>
> What browser does this for you? None of the ones I've tested do, I don't
> think....
MacWeb does it. I'm not near a Sun at the moment to check XMosaic. Wrapping
is an available mode in text widgets so it's not a big deal. Since this
is all client side stuff it is a user option anyway. It's difficult to think of
a situation where a user would not want word wrap in a TEXTAREA analogous to
the word wrap in the main document.
OK, I see your problem. Mosaic on the Mac doesn't word wrap on TEXTAREA and
doesn't seem to have a switch for it in the Style dialog. Our memo and
annotation servers have been tested with clients pasting word processor
files with 30K or more of text into TEXTAREA fields. This works fine
in MacWeb which is what we have been issuing routinely.
I agree - TEXTAREA fields without word wrap are not aesthetic! - should go
on the bugs/features list of Mosaic.
Root problem is that the client side is responsible for such matters of style
and one is talking of features not standards. However, it would make more
sense if the expected default behavior of a TEXTAREA was to wrap. Forms
are now being used for major data entry functions that go way beyond
their origins as a basis for more complex search requests.
b.
Brian Gaines Knowledge Science Institute, University of Calgary
gaines@cpsc.ucalgary.ca Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4
http://ksi.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/KSI/KSI.html