[Bug 19035] New: We should handle the case of a bunch of required controls all being hidden at once — the author shouldn't have to also go in an remove the 'required' attribute on each one. Maybe make hidden="" bar things from constraint validation?

https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=19035

           Summary: We should handle the case of a bunch of required
                    controls all being hidden at once — the author
                    shouldn't have to also go in an remove the 'required'
                    attribute on each one. Maybe make hidden="" bar things
                    from constraint validation?
           Product: HTML WG
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: Other
               URL: http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#bar
                    red-from-constraint-validation
        OS/Version: other
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P3
         Component: HTML5 spec
        AssignedTo: dave.null@w3.org
        ReportedBy: contributor@whatwg.org
         QAContact: public-html-bugzilla@w3.org
                CC: ian@hixie.ch, bzbarsky@mit.edu, mike@w3.org,
                    public-html-wg-issue-tracking@w3.org,
                    public-html@w3.org, ayg@aryeh.name,
                    mounir.lamouri@gmail.com


This was was cloned from bug 11794 as part of operation LATER convergence.
Originally filed: 2011-01-18 20:52:00 +0000

================================================================================
 #0   contributor@whatwg.org                          2011-01-18 20:52:52 +0000 
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Specification: http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/complete.html
Section:
http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#barred-from-constraint-validation

Comment:
We should handle the case of a bunch of required controls all being hidden at
once — the author shouldn't have to also go in an remove the 'required'
attribute on each one. Maybe make hidden="" bar things from constraint
validation?

Posted from: 76.102.14.57 by ian@hixie.ch
================================================================================
 #1   Ian 'Hixie' Hickson                             2011-01-18 20:53:22 +0000 
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(ack nemo on #developers)
================================================================================
 #2   Ian 'Hixie' Hickson                             2011-01-18 21:09:05 +0000 
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zcorpan points out this was considered before (though without a use case, it
seems):
http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/whatwg-whatwg.org/2010-August/027624.html

<fieldset disabled> is the main way we've said to do this in the past, but the
case that raised this this time had markup involving nested lists, where a
fieldset would be a bit awkward.
================================================================================
 #3   Ian 'Hixie' Hickson                             2011-01-18 21:10:38 +0000 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
zcorpan also suggests maybe making disabled="" a global attribute (or at least
an attribute allowed on non-void <body> descendants).
================================================================================
 #4   Simon Pieters                                   2011-01-18 21:22:09 +0000 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
disabled seems to be a global attribute in IE which grays text, disables form
controls and contenteditable.
================================================================================
 #5   Boris Zbarsky                                   2011-01-18 21:42:16 +0000 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The issue with overloading @hidden this way is that anytime it's used the
browser would have to check for form controls that are descendants of the node
whose @hidden is being changed.  This means either making @hidden changes
slower in all cases, or optimizing for the case of no form descendants and
maintaining state on ancestors of form controls (making form control insertion
and/or removal slower).

For fieldset's @disabled what Gecko does is that fieldsets observe changes to
the DOM under them, and when form controls are added add them to a list stored
in the fieldset.  This makes @disabled changes fast, and only affects
insertion/removal of nodes under fieldsets (and in a pretty minor way).  It
costs a bit more memory per fieldset node, but those are rare.  This approach
wouldn't work for arbitrary @hidden, because the extra memory cost per node for
_all_ elements doesn't seem desirable...
================================================================================
 #6   Mounir Lamouri                                  2011-01-19 21:59:11 +0000 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Couldn't we simply add 'novalidate' attribute to form controls to make them
barred from constraint validation?
================================================================================
 #7   Simon Pieters                                   2011-01-20 10:10:12 +0000 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(In reply to comment #6)
> Couldn't we simply add 'novalidate' attribute to form controls to make them
> barred from constraint validation?

That wouldn't address the problem this bug describes since it's equally
annoying to add novalidate to all affected controls as it is to add disabled or
remove required on them.
================================================================================
 #8   Mounir Lamouri                                  2011-01-20 10:42:42 +0000 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(In reply to comment #7)
> (In reply to comment #6)
> > Couldn't we simply add 'novalidate' attribute to form controls to make them
> > barred from constraint validation?
> 
> That wouldn't address the problem this bug describes since it's equally
> annoying to add novalidate to all affected controls as it is to add disabled or
> remove required on them.

Disabled would prevent the form control from being submitted. That wouldn't be
the same as barring it from constraint validation.

And removing required is one use case. Having an attribute to bar the element
from constraint validation would work easily in all situations.

Maybe we could also make novalidate set on a fieldset barring all fieldset
descendants from constraint validation.
================================================================================
 #9   Boris Zbarsky                                   2011-01-20 14:49:13 +0000 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Right, that's the other questions.  When would one hide a bunch of unrelated
controls?  And shouldn't related controls be in a fieldset?

I'd be happy with making novalidate on fieldsets imply it for all controls in
the fieldset.
================================================================================
 #10  Ian 'Hixie' Hickson                             2011-02-16 08:15:26 +0000 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The use case in question is something like a list where each list item can be
toggled between representing either nothing or a set of further fields nested
within it. You want each nested field to be disabled when the parent list item
is in the "off" state, and enabled otherwise, and you don't want to have to
crawl the tree manually each time.

EDITOR'S RESPONSE: This is an Editor's Response to your comment. If you are
satisfied with this response, please change the state of this bug to CLOSED. If
you have additional information and would like the editor to reconsider, please
reopen this bug. If you would like to escalate the issue to the full HTML
Working Group, please add the TrackerRequest keyword to this bug, and suggest
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yourself, if you are able to do so. For more details, see this document:
   http://dev.w3.org/html5/decision-policy/decision-policy.html

Status: Partially Accepted
Change Description: none yet
Rationale: I'm going to postpone this for now, since there are temporary (if
awkward) workarounds in the use of <fieldset> or in the use of utility
functions that crawl the tree marking elements as disabled, and since the use
case isn't a huge use case, and since the proposed solutions have real problems
and I don't have a better proposal at the moment.
================================================================================

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Received on Tuesday, 25 September 2012 21:58:21 UTC