Re: Dropping <input usemap="">

Robert Burns wrote:
> The assumption may be wrong or it may be right. The point is, it just 
> doesn't matter. Let's assume that all of these authors were just typing 
> randomly and happened to type <input type='image' usemap='*'>.  Then the 
> number of authors trying to use this HTML 4.01 feature that has not been 
> implemented is 0%.

Please try to understand that there is a significant difference between 
trying to use a specific feature and trying to fulfil a use case.

We are looking for valid, significant and convincing use cases for which 
client side image maps should be used for form submission.  So far, no 
significant and convincing use cases or real world occurrence of that 
functionality have been demonstrated.

There are ways that authors could provide this functionality, such as 
through scripting [1] or using image slices.  Authors are generally very 
creative when it comes to working around browser limitations, and thus I 
find your argument based on the lack of implementations to be deceptive 
and unimaginative.

As some real world examples of such creativity, what do you think 
authors used to fulfil the use case of fetching external data over the 
web using scripts before XMLHttpRequest() became so widely implemented? 
  Or how do you think authors currently embed and provide custom contols 
for videos without the <video> element?  The point is that you need to 
think and look outside of the box to see evidence for use cases, not 
necessarily evidence for a specific feature being used.

The point of looking at the usemap examples that have been presented was 
to see what use cases they are currently using <input usemap> for. 
Since virtually none of those appear to be using it for anything 
remotely useful which isn't provided through other means, you now need 
to look elsewhere to support your case.

[1] http://shadow2531.com/opera/testcases/imagemaps/002.html

-- 
Lachlan Hunt
http://lachy.id.au/

Received on Thursday, 16 August 2007 05:08:13 UTC