Re: [WF2] new attributes that often conflict with actual pages

On Wed, 05 Nov 2008 16:06:26 +0100, Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch> wrote:

>> I've seen these new attributes cause problems for real-life websites. I
>> think we shold discuss re-naming them to make conflicts with existing
>> content less likely:
>>
>> INPUT action
>>  - breaks web applications frequently. Both GMail and Yahoo mail (the  
>> new Oddpost-based version) use input/button.action and were seriously  
>> broken by WF2's action attribute.
>> I propose renaming it "actionurl".
>
> I notice that Opera still supports 'action' and doesn't seem to have
> problems in GMail; is this still a problem?

GMail fixed it on their side a while ago.
It is still a problem with Yahoo mail, breaking most buttons in their UI  
for a browser that supports "action". We work around this with a  
browser.js hack.

("Still a problem" means "I tested this again a couple of weeks ago and  
things were still broken without this patch". Obviously they may have  
gotten around to fixing it since then but I've seen it quite recently  
while reviewing our site patches.)

We've also seen several sites being broken because they included stray  
"action" attributes by mistake. Sites we've broken by supporting .action  
include Brunei airlines, Nordea bank's online banking login,  
AirFaresBasement.com, American Express' login (some of these are still  
broken and patched BTW). I'm fairly sure I've also seen a few others that  
I don't remember and can't find at the moment.

Obviously submitting forms randomly to wrong URLs makes any site where  
users want to get things done *completely* useless.

Bottom line: implementing "required" has been really painful  
compatibility-wise. Any UA that wants to implement "required" as it is  
specified now is going to need hackish workarounds against compat problems.

-- 
Hallvord R. M. Steen
Core JavaScript tester, Opera Software
http://www.opera.com/
Opera - simply the best Internet experience

Received on Wednesday, 5 November 2008 15:30:33 UTC