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

On Wed, 16 Jan 2008 20:06:44 +0100, Laurens Holst  
<lholst@students.cs.uu.nl> 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:
>
> Just for the sake of clarity: are you talking about XML attributes or
> DOM properties here?

DOM properties, sorry. I have snipped away some comments that were  
relevant to XML attributes only.

>> 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".
>
> And still there are people who claim that namespaces and XHTML are
> useless :).

I would not claim such a thing but I think the namespaces spec is too  
complicated, making it hard to author for.

>> SELECT data
>> FORM data
>>
>> These break
>> a) scripts that set them, read them back and are confused because they
>> turned into resolved URLs
>
> I think changing XML attribute values when they’re set is very bad
> practice (and impossible to implement properly in a standard DOM). It
> might in some instances be necessary for ‘compatibility with the web’
> (aka IE), but IMO should be avoided otherwise.

Yes. This is about properties.

> However, I did see that the DOM ‘data’ property does not explicitly
> state that it should be a resolved absolute value [1]. I think this
> should happen, similar to similar DOM properties such as a
> HTMLFormElement.action [2] (note: does not explicitly state it either,
> but browser do implement it this way), HTMLAnchorElement.href [3] (does
> explicitly state it must return an absolute uri), etc..

Yes, this should be clarified.

> Can I get an acknowledgement that these comments are noted by the editor?
>
>> b) scripts that define global functions called data and try to call
>> them with a SELECT or FORM element in scope (for example from event
>> handlers)
>>
>> I propose renaming it "dataurl"
>
> But all in all, I’d say that the cases you are citing contain very
> sloppy code, and deserve to break. It seems obvious that adding such
> obvious custom attributes without prepending a prefix of some kind is a
> compatibility problem just waiting to happen. I am not in favour of
> renaming these attributes and properties for the sake of those sites.

Problem is that pointing fingers doesn't contribute much to achieving  
compatibility with the Web.

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

Received on Friday, 18 January 2008 14:26:54 UTC