[whatwg] Spellchecking proposal #2

   There are a few things I want to note:

   First of all, a |spellcheck| attribute, as conceived, is inconsistent
across web sites. An address input should have the same spell check
settings on every web page I go to, regardless of what the author wants.

   If you use |spellcheck| as an initial hint, then the first site you
visit will determine the settings for all other sites that use the same
input fields. This may or may not be desired. It would be nice for
authors to be able to provide hints for spell checking in rarely used
fields, but I don't see that as being the primary use case.

   Also, having a boolean value for spell checking prevents further
innovation down the road. For instance, if you're writing a script in a
<textarea>, you may want it to only spell check comments and quotations,
so you'd want to have an attribute value for this kind of spell
checking. Then again, it may be your intent for |spellcheck| to be used
in combination with |accept|. Is that the idea?

   Another problem is |pattern|. Any spell checking mechanism will have
to conform to the pattern value provided, which means either a really
creative spell checking algorithm or turning spell checking off. I think
the latter is probably the best idea, but it probably shouldn't be "must".

   Overall, I think |accept| and UA spell checking settings that are
tied to |name| or |class| eliminate most use case for |spellcheck|.

Received on Friday, 23 June 2006 15:11:40 UTC