- From: Matthew Thomas <mpt@myrealbox.com>
- Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 16:19:48 +1300
On 8 Nov, 2004, at 7:35 AM, Afternoon wrote: > ... > Proposed addition to Web Controls 1.0. > > Separate designation for data bearing tables All HTML tables are already data-bearing, unless they're non-conformant. (<td> stands for Table Data.) You might make a case that <table> is more often used incorrectly than correctly, but you would then also need to make a case that creating a "separate designation for data-bearing tables" would solve the problem. The latter would have two main pitfalls. Firstly, authors who had used <table> properly in good faith would be annoyed that *they* were the ones having to change their markup, rather than the authors who had used <table> wrongly to begin with. Secondly, the mistaken authors might *also* start using the new syntax just because it's the cool thing to do, even when it's inappropriate (just like they jumped from using <b> to using <strong> even when it was inappropriate, or from using <i> to using <em> even when it was inappropriate, or from producing "HTML" to producing "XHTML" even when it was not well-formed). > that allow browsers to provide extended data manipulation features > such as: > > * Sorting > Standard controls for sorting by each column/asc+desc There's no reason browsers couldn't have implemented this already, except for lack of demand. (If an author is smart enough to use the <th> element, they're smart enough not to mind that a browser makes most <th>s clickable and reserves space for a sorting indicator triangle.) > Native code for fast sorting of many data Web Controls 1.0 should include native code for fast sorting of many data? Why, and under what license? > * In-browser pagination > If the dataset is small, there is no reason why a larger number > of data can't be sent to the browser, to allow greater sorting > functionality there. Do you mean something like <th sortorder="S,M,L,XL,XXL,XXXL">Size</th>? > Usable display of larger datasets would be > assisted by pagination. > ... I don't know what you mean by that. (If you mean that <thead> and <tfoot> should, if there is room, remain visible while a table is being scrolled, like they do in spreadsheets, I think browsers should be doing that anyway. <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=53702> Merely inventing new syntax for it wouldn't make it easier to implement.) -- Matthew Thomas http://mpt.net.nz/
Received on Sunday, 7 November 2004 19:19:48 UTC