- From: Peter Kasting <pkasting@google.com>
- Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2009 09:49:37 -0800
2009/1/27 K?i?tof ?elechovski <kkz at mimuw.edu.pl> > The original use of the spellcheck attribute was to switch spell checking > off > No, the _original_ use was to turn it on on fields where it would otherwise have been on. > (I think we both believe it should generally be on). Using a private > language for the control would do the trick equally well, without > introducing a new attribute. > It wouldn't do it equally well, since semantically, it would mean "this is of language <private>", which will be strictly inaccurate. > Avoiding an additional attribute is a gain, > Why? > If the language detection libraries are as good as you claim, why is > Firefox unable to use them in a way that is not annoying? > Because no one has had the time or energy to devote to this? I have worked full-time on browsers for a number of years now and have never seen any team with the time to fix all the things that could or should be fixed. > As I have already mentioned, GMail should provide an option for the sender > to inform the recipient about the language used in the message, not for the > client-side spell checker, but for the recipient. > Which no one will ever use, because users aren't going to take the trouble to declare such a thing when human recipients can just _read the text_. After all, WE have built-in language detectors in our heads. > We can drop the suggestion language="auto" if you wish, but it would be an > explicit way of informing the user that he is allowed to enter text in any > language he pleases. > As if users aren't going to just enter whatever language they please into any field they wish? We design software that has to accommodate people, not the other way around :) I have no idea whether there are better things web apps and UAs can do w.r.t. communicating what languages are used where. All I know is that both in the abtstract and practically, whether I want a field spellchecked by default is a distinct concern from which language(s) would be used to spellcheck it. Therefore I continue to see the spellcheck attribute as distinct from (though possibly complimentary to) language. PK -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/whatwg-whatwg.org/attachments/20090127/37b2069b/attachment.htm>
Received on Tuesday, 27 January 2009 09:49:37 UTC