[Bug 12561] Add the @action in the <form> so that there is a way to submit to the same page

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=12561

--- Comment #17 from Luke Plant <L.Plant.98@cantab.net> 2011-06-21 09:19:04 UTC ---
(In reply to comment #15)

> Rationale: The use cases listed are already possible.

I think you may have missed one I described:

I want a form to have action="some-url", but I want a single button to target
the current URL, and so want to set formaction="". This is not allowed under
the current spec.

> action="" (empty) is not the same as action=" " (single space) for historical
> reasons and as this is very confusing, it is made non-conforming to not specify
> a non-empty URL.

I do not understand this reason at all, because it is fixing confusion by
adding worse confusion and difficulty.

I, for one, despite developing web sites for many years, and being a core
developer of a fairly prominent web framework (Django), had no idea about the
difference between action=" " and action="", presumably because I'd never
needed to use the <base> element - AFAICS the difference only kicks in at that
point.

But now I've been forced to find out about it! All, apparently, to stop me
being confused by a situation I would, most likely, have never found myself in.
All I want to do is set a form's action to a perfectly valid URL, but instead I
end up having a history lesson and being told I've got to do some other strange
thing instead. How is this helping me?

If using <base> was the norm, this might make some sense, but as it is
extremely rare, it is still rather difficult to understand why this change has
been made. 

(I can't find any stats on the use of <base> - I've only got my anecdotal
evidence that I don't think I've *ever* come across it in the wild, and I'm
still looking for one live example. I presume this is because it is basically
not very useful - it only really helps you if all your relative links are going
to the same sub-directory, which seems less and less like with modern web
development).

-- 
Configure bugmail: http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/userprefs.cgi?tab=email
------- You are receiving this mail because: -------
You are the QA contact for the bug.

Received on Tuesday, 21 June 2011 09:19:07 UTC