RE: Context menus in XForms

Hi David,

>First I want to say how much I liked reading your mail. You 
>really seem to have given this great thought :)

Thanks, I'm glad you like it :-)
  
>I think it might be a problem having appearance="softkey" as 
>that make the appearance attribute specific to the mobile UI 
>and only make little sense on a desktop machine (browser user 
>agents don't normally use the
>F1-F12 and show a meaning full description, I guess AS-400 
>systems does something like that). Maybe it could get that 
>styling information from a CSS stylesheet. Since authors can 
>use the @media to apply different properties depending on the 
>user agent it will make that solution flexible? Could the 
>softkeys actually be selected using the accesskey attribute?

I don't see it as a styling issue because there is a more fundamental
user interaction question of which options are shown immediately and
which require further action from the user to be seen. Also, if XForms
is used by a separate mobile forms application instead of being built
into the browser (an important use case for mobiles), there is no CSS
support. I therefore would prefer not to have any usability-enhancing
features in XForms that can only be accessed via CSS.

In general, I don't see it as a problem if a certain type of user agent
does not support a specific value of the apperance attribute, because it
is only a hint. There is nothing to prevent a browser-based XForms
implementation from implementing soft keys either, e.g. by showing their
labels in the status bar. However, the value should perhaps be called
something else than "softkey" which is indeed mobile-specific. There is
not really any need for the reverse ("options") value either, because
that would be the default. One could either invent a new value, e.g.
"immediate" (because the option is shown immediately, without need for
further action) or one could reuse the select1 appearance values, with
"full" meaning "use softkey if feasible", and other values meaning "put
in separate options menu", and default appearance being "minimal".

BR,
     --Oskari

Received on Tuesday, 28 March 2006 08:05:48 UTC