Re: Form element dependencies

On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 7:53 PM, sisbluesteel <sisbluesteel@aol.com> wrote:
> Indeed,
>
> But I think this feature should be in the HTML specification. Here's a few
> proposals how this could be implemented:

I'm not sure the added complexity is warranted given that the
functionality can be implemented using JS at present.

How many use cases are there for dependent inputs?

Front-end validation is additionally largely just an optimization as
the primary location for validation will always be on the server-side
to ensure conformance of rules as a necessity for security. There is
always some validation which can't be performed client-side, unique
database fields are one example. The point is that HTML will never be
able to model the entirety of validation rules declaratively.

Cameron

>
> 1a) Attributes (data-* -like)
>
>   Don't know if this is a good idea, as the attribute name is not fixed. I'm
> not sure if the XML representation can be validated so that the dependencies
> actually point to existing elements.
>
>  Here the dependencies are expressed as either one of these attributes:
>
>     "dependency": The value must be the name (attribute) of the dependency.
> This means that this element is valid/active only if the dependency is valid
>     "dependency-*": The "dependency-" -prefix must be followed by the name
> (attribute) of the dependency. The value must be the dependency's required
> element value (e.g. If the dependency is a select-element).
>
>  <select name="example-select-dependency">
>    <option value="1">1</option>
>    <option value="2">2</option>
>    <option value="3">3</option>
>  </select>
>  <input type="checkbox" name="example-checkbox-dependency" />
>  <input
>     type="text"
>     name="example-checkbox-dependant-text"
>     depends="example-checkbox-dependency"
>   />
>  <input
>     type="text"
>     name="example-select-dependant-text"
>     depends-example-select-dependency="3"
>   />
>
> 1b) Attributes with custom value syntax
>
>  This alternative specifies an attribute called "dependency" which value
> requires special parsing:
>
> The value must  start with the name (attribute) of the dependency,
> optionally followed by a colon (":") which must be followed with the
> required value of the dependency element.
>
>  <select name="example-select-dependency">
>    <option value="1">1</option>
>    <option value="2">2</option>
>    <option value="3">3</option>
>  </select>
>  <input type="checkbox" name="example-checkbox-dependency" />
>  <input
>     type="text"
>     name="example-checkbox-dependant-text"
>     depends="example-checkbox-dependency"
>   />
>  <input
>     type="text"
>     name="example-select-dependant-text"
>     depends="example-select-dependency:3"
>   />
>
> 2) Dependencies as elements
>
>  This implementation apes the datalist-element's syntax. This might not be
> desirable because dependencies probably shouldn't be rendered by a user
> agent (At least not visual ones), as opposed to datalist options.
>
> Form elements can have a "dependencies" -attribute which must contain an id
> referencing a dependencies -element. "dependencies"-element must have
> "dependency"-elements as children. Each "dependency" -element must have at
> least a "name" -attribute which denotes the name of the dependency element.
> Optional attribute "value" must contain the required element value of the
> dependency.
>
>  <select name="example-select-dependency">
>    <option value="1">1</option>
>    <option value="2">2</option>
>    <option value="3">3</option>
>  </select>
>  <input type="checkbox" name="example-checkbox-dependency" />
>  <input type="text"
>     name="example-checkbox-dependant-text"
>     dependencies="dependencies-example-checkbox-dependant-text"
>   />
>  <input
>     type="text"
>     name="example-select-dependant-text"
>     dependencies="dependencies-select-radio-dependant-text"
>   />
>
> <dependencies id="dependencies-example-checkbox-dependant-text">
>         <dependency name="example-checkbox-dependency" />
> </dependencies>
>
> <dependencies id="dependencies-example-select-dependant-text">
>         <dependency name="example-select-dependency" value="b" />
> </dependencies>
>
>
>
> On 04.03.2015 16:47, Cameron Jones wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 12:17 PM, Sis Bluesteel <sisbluesteel@aol.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> With HTML5 form validation comes a possibility to validate user written
>>> data
>>> without any server intervention (Before actually sending the whole form
>>> data) or custom client-side scripting. However, currently there is no
>>> predefined functionality in the markup or Javascript for form element
>>> dependencies. And with 'dependencies', I mean an element's
>>> validity/availability being triggered by another element's validity. Has
>>> this been considered at any point?
>>>
>>> Please redirect me to the right mailing list if this not the right place
>>> for
>>> this kind of discussion.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>
>> There is the "Constraint Validation API" which models the validity of
>> inputs based on their settings:
>>
>>
>> http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/#the-constraint-validation-api
>>
>> The method to use for dependencies would be to check another input's
>> validity as part of the dependent input's checks.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Cameron Jones
>
>

Received on Thursday, 5 March 2015 13:00:18 UTC