- From: Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>
- Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 15:16:03 +0000 (UTC)
On Mon, 6 Sep 2004, Matthew Thomas wrote: > On 26 Aug, 2004, at 11:30 AM, Ian Hickson wrote: > > On Tue, 10 Aug 2004, Matthew Thomas wrote: > > ... > > > Er, really? So in HTML5, what do you propose will be the recommended way > > > of making these controls invisible in downlevel UAs? > > > ... > > > * <select> > > > * <textarea> > > > > Not sure what you are referring to here, these aren't new in HTML5. > > Well, neither is <menu> technically. But my main point is that I don't > see why being able to hide <menu>s without CSS is any more of a good > idea than being able to hide any of those other interactive elements > without CSS. Because <menu>s have an out-of-band presentation, but <select> and <textarea> are expected to render in the content area. > > > I appreciate that CSS isn't an ideal degradation mechanism, but then > > > making something invisible is an odd sort of degradation for an > > > interactive element to begin with. > > > > Not if that element wouldn't do anything useful anyway. For example, > > you wouldn't want a context menu to degrade to something visible, you > > would just not have the context menu feature. ... > > I think that's a bad misjudgement of the average intelligence of Web > designers: it assumes that for each item in the shortcut menu, they'll > provide alternative access elsewhere. But even developers of native > applications (who are likely to be smarter on average, since developing > native applications is more difficult) often forget to do this. (For > example, a certain browser vendor that shall remain nameless makes it > possible to set an image as your Windows wallpaper -- but only if you > know of, and are able to use, the shortcut menu.) > > And no, saying "authors should provide alternative access to everything > in a hidden-syntax shortcut menu" in the WA spec won't work, just as > saying the same in the Mac and Windows UI guidelines hasn't worked for > native applications. But at least in Mac OS and Windows it's always > *possible* to access the shortcut menu, whereas in WA-ignorant UAs it > isn't. While I understand your concern, note that while the idea is that using WHATWG-proposed features must be possible without crippling the legacy UA experience, it is not a requirement that it be impossible to write WHATWG- based documents that are not functionally equivalent in old UAs. If your context menu uses WA1-specific features, then in pre-WA1 UAs there might not _be_ an equivalent option, and so you just wouldn't want the context menu to appear at all. -- Ian Hickson U+1047E )\._.,--....,'``. fL http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A /, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,. Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
Received on Tuesday, 16 November 2004 07:16:03 UTC