[whatwg] Another alternative to select editable

Having read through the other suggestions here (and having a really big desire 
for this ability), I thought I'd try to suggest another alternative.

Perhaps you could add another tag called something like 'combo' (or something 
better), which simply ignores every child except for options, optgroups and 
whatever else that sits inside a select. That way, you could write whatever 
legacy controls are appropriate for the field. For example, for a situation in 
which the user never needs to specify new options:

<combo name="thing" allownew="false"><select>
<option>1</option>
<option>2</option>
</select></combo>

(Note: This is useful when there are over 1000's of possibilities, and scrolling 
becomes painful, but still possible. Also, even when typing on a select is done 
properly (like in mozilla), the mouse is still a pain, since it pops up the list 
all the time, and it isn't clear that you can type the first few letters to get 
to an option.)

For situations in which the user *does* need to specify new options:

<combo name="thing" newname="thing_new">
<select name="thing">
<option></option>
<option>1</option>
<option>2</option>
</select> or you can type a new entry: <input type="text" name="thing_new">
</combo>

This would submit the name:value pair 'thing':<value> if an option is chosen, or 
  'thing_new':<typed-in-value> if the user enters a value (plus 'thing':<blank>, 
though that can be ignored).

Hopefully you find this suggestion reasonable (or at least some suggestion can 
be found that allows for this feature while supporting non-WF2 clients). I'm not 
sure if adding a tag like this is frowned upon --- if it is, please let me know why.

Received on Tuesday, 29 June 2004 03:27:21 UTC