- From: Aryeh Gregor <Simetrical+w3c@gmail.com>
- Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:32:39 -0400
On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 10:42 PM, Jonas Sicking<jonas at sicking.cc> wrote: > The difference between <input type=text> and <textarea> is mostly a > rendering one. One scrolls the text when it can't fit, the other > wraps. <input type=text> also can't contain newlines. > Of course, another solution would be to allow <input type=text> to > change rendering to be that of a textarea, and teach the world to > migrate from <textarea> to <input type=text>. That would seem more > semantically correct. I actually think it's reasonable to argue that there's a meaningful difference between a field designed to contain a single value, like a username or social security number, and a field designed to contain free-form text. I don't think things like autocomplete (or associated features like datalist) really make any sense for textareas, for example. Some browsers also spell-check textareas by default and not <input type=text>, and so on. Of course, by this logic, authors should use still <textarea> or something for one-line free-form text inputs, like the subject field of an e-mail form. But there are styling issues that would have to be overcome for that to work.
Received on Monday, 31 August 2009 06:32:39 UTC