Use cases for a few elements: event-source, details, datagrid, datalist, menu, and command

Hello all,

I've done my best to read through the HTML5 draft and decipher what  
it's all about.  In many cases we've discussed some of the newly  
proposed semantics here on the list. However, there are several  
elements that I haven't been able to get my mind around just from the  
draft or reading the discussions on this list. So to help me — and  
presumably other members — I'd like to start some discussion of those  
elements. Perhaps this thread should immediately fork into element- 
specific threads. Feel free to do so.

In part, I feel I need some further discussion to be able to finish  
some of my reviews on related portions of the draft. With that in  
mind here's some starting questions.

DETAILS [1]
-------------------------
I think I generally understand the purpose of details. However, this  
to me appears to be a useful behavior on any arbitrary element in  
HTML since its all a tree. Is there some reason having a separate  
element for this is better than adding a global attribute or attributes.

DATAGRID [2]
-------------------------
Again, I think I understand the use case for this (at least in part).  
However, I don't understand how a data grid is different than tabular  
data. Again is this functionality that could be added to the existing  
table elements without requiring a whole new element?

MENU [3]
-------------------------
For menu, this is an existing, though formerly deprecated element.  
However, I'm not sure how a menu element is any different than a  
select element. Wouldn't it be simpler to add the new attributes for  
the menu element to the select, optgroup and option elements. I could  
imagine allowing select elements in the head element in HTML5 UAs.  
Alternatively a stylesheet could set the select element with the  
'toolbar', context' or 'menu' types to visibility: hidden to degrade  
gracefully in pre-HTML5 UAs. Or even allow the select elements of  
those types to still be visible to accomplish the same selection  
through a pre-HTML5 semantic. So how is a menu different than a select?

COMMAND [4]
-------------------------
This is not clear to me from the draft. If anyone could elaborate on  
the use cases for this, it would be helpful. I'm not clear how it  
differs from other similar mechanisms or how it might be invoked by a  
user. Is this anything like an option element within a select element?

DATALIST [5]
-------------------------
The datalist element also looks very much like a select element,  
though with a slightly different presentational UI. Is this something  
that would be better handled through CSS? If not, why not?

EVENT-SOURCE [6]
-------------------------
For this element, I had great difficulty in deciphering the use cases  
for it. Any discussion on this would be helpful.

Interactive elements
-------------------------
Also I had a small question on taxonomy here. The "interactive  
elements" look to me to be very much like the 'form elements' in that  
though we call them 'form elements' what differentiates them from the  
other HTML elements is that they have certain interactive behaviors.  
Is there some reason these interactive elements are not included  
among the other form elements?

I look forward to the discussion.

Take care,
Rob

[1]: <http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/AddedElementDetails> and
<http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/~checkout~/html5/spec/Overview.html? 
rev=1.78#the-details>
[2]: <http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/AddedElementDatagrid> and
<http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/~checkout~/html5/spec/Overview.html? 
rev=1.78#datagrid>
[3]: <http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/ChangedElementMenu> and
<http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/~checkout~/html5/spec/Overview.html? 
rev=1.78#menus>
[4]: <http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/AddedElementCommand> and
<http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/~checkout~/html5/spec/Overview.html? 
rev=1.78#the-command>
[5]: <http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/AddedElementDatalist> and
<http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/~checkout~/html5/spec/Overview.html? 
rev=1.78#the-datalist>
[6]: <http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/AddedElementEventsource> and
<http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/~checkout~/html5/spec/Overview.html? 
rev=1.78#the-event-source>

Received on Thursday, 6 September 2007 02:59:19 UTC