- From: Matthew Thomas <mpt@myrealbox.com>
- Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2005 13:24:27 -0300
On 4 Aug, 2005, at 10:25 PM, Dean Edwards wrote: > ... > My thinking is that the presence of a pattern "hint" attribute would > trigger a small change in the chrome of an input box. A help icon > would be displayed indicating a more complex data entry pattern. > Clicking this icon presents the user with instructions on completing > the field. The same text can be used to aid in completing invalid > forms. It seems unlikely that such a help icon is an ideal, or even a good, way of presenting complex pattern help. (1) It would alter the layout of the page when a control was focused, (2) it would require an extra click, and (3) using a standard help icon would reinforce people's unwillingness to read the help on the grounds that uniformly-provided help text usually isn't helpful. Problems (1) and (3) apply to most possible presentations that would be noticable at all. > If we don't supply such a mechanism, developers will alter their > markup/CSS to include a hint for complex patterns anyway. > ... I don't see a problem with that; it's not something that would benefit noticably from consistency across sites. In the meantime, browser vendors can -- at their leisure -- improve support for the pattern= attribute to the point where, for example, onblur() they scroll a field to the errant position and point a balloon at it saying "You need three digits in this part of the text, not four". -- Matthew Thomas http://mpt.net.nz/
Received on Friday, 5 August 2005 09:24:27 UTC