[Bug 12906] New: Canvas should not pretend that it can be used to replace some input elements

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=12906

           Summary: Canvas should not pretend that it can be used to
                    replace some input elements
           Product: HTML WG
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: PC
        OS/Version: Windows XP
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P2
         Component: HTML5 spec (editor: Ian Hickson)
        AssignedTo: ian@hixie.ch
        ReportedBy: jackalmage@gmail.com
         QAContact: public-html-bugzilla@w3.org
                CC: mike@w3.org, public-html-wg-issue-tracking@w3.org,
                    public-html@w3.org


The <canvas> element's contents are meant to act as a DOM-based alternative
representation of the visual and script-driven canvas image.  However, it is
practically impossible for authors to actually duplicate all of the necessary
accessibility-related functionality of many <input> types, particularly
"simple" ones like <input type=text>.  For example, properly handling bidi
reordering, or presenting IMEs for a reasonable number of languages, are both
extremely difficult tasks that take quite a bit of engineering effort to get
right and require a lot of expert and domain-specific knowledge.

Because of this, authors should not use <canvas> to create text inputs and
other controls that are complex in similar ways.  We should reflect this
restriction in the content model of <canvas>, so that authors do not believe
that they can simply recreate a crappy half-implementation of text inputs in
canvas, and then put an <input type=text> in the fallback content to make it
all better.

(Authors will produce crappy half-implementations of text inputs in canvas
anyway, but we can at least make it *more wrong* to do so, to discourage the
practice.)

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Received on Wednesday, 8 June 2011 07:24:35 UTC