- From: Kristof Zelechovski <giecrilj@stegny.2a.pl>
- Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 10:24:24 +0200
A LABEL in the first column of a table has no way of containing the corresponding INPUT in the second column; I suppose this was the use case for LABEL[FOR]. I do not like it either but creating an alternative alignment with CSS may be too cumbersome for many designers (to me, it is just wishful thinking that you can make a good layout on a client machine by measuring elements in advance) and such use of the TABLE does contain a grain of meaning. I understand that data attributes can be of much help; I just wonder why nobody came up with an alternative solution of using a hidden sibling instead ([DISPLAY=NONE] or [TYPE=HIDDEN] or whatever). This has the advantage of being valid HTML4. Chris -----Original Message----- From: whatwg-bounces@lists.whatwg.org [mailto:whatwg-bounces at lists.whatwg.org] On Behalf Of Ian Hickson Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2008 8:47 AM To: Matthew Paul Thomas Cc: WHATWG List Subject: Re: [whatwg] Context help in Web Forms On Mon, 12 Nov 2007, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: > On Oct 30, 2007, at 6:01 PM, Ian Hickson wrote: > > On Mon, 13 Jun 2005, Matthew Thomas wrote: > > > > > > Or perhaps <a ... rel="help" for="phone-number">, to be consistent > > > with the for= attribute in <label>. > > > > This is a possibility, but is it really needed? In general it seems > > we'd want to encourage authors to put the links near the text and > > controls to which it applies. > > Sure, but I don't see how it's different from <label> in that respect: > we want to encourage authors to put <label> near the control to which it > applies, but <label> already has for=. (<label> can have weak semantic > value even when not related to a particular control, but then so could > rel="help".) I'm not sure I would have designed <label> as it is either. > > > Many applications provide inline help which is not a label, and the > > > same attributes would be appropriate here: <div rel="help" > > > for="phone-number"><p>The full number, including country code.</p> > > > <p>Example: <samp>+61 3 1234 5678</samp></p></div> > > > > How would UAs use this? > > UAs likely wouldn't, but scripts could. For example, a form might > include sparing help by default, with a style sheet hiding more > exhaustive help (as indicated by rel="help"). Then a script could add a > small help button after each control that has associated help (i.e. each > control with name="x" where there exists an element on the page with > rel="help" for="x"). When a control's help button was clicked, the > control's help would be shown. > > Another possible presentation would be reserving whitespace to the right > of the form, and making <whatever rel="help" for="x"> visible in that > space whenever <input name="x"> was focused. > > <http://uxmatters.com/MT/archives/000191.php> shows these and other > examples of dynamic help. The data-* attributes are intended for scripts like this. -- Ian Hickson U+1047E )\._.,--....,'``. fL http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A /, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,. Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
Received on Tuesday, 27 May 2008 01:24:24 UTC