[whatwg] @autocomplete sections

Hello,

While looking at implementing the new autocomplete attribute syntax, I was wondering about the driver for section-* tokens.  The example in the spec[1] with multiple shipping addresses for one checkout isn't something I've seen done in the wild in one flow. In the example, how did the website know that the two items should be in different sections in the first place? The only idea I'm thinking of is a checkbox to indicate an item was a gift when it was added to the cart. If the website already knew about the different shipping addresses of the user when the item was added to the cart, it wouldn't really need to autocomplete the shipping address again. 

Example:
* On the page for product A, the user chooses address A from a <select> that the page populated from information on past shipping addresses or checks a checkbox that the item is a gift.
* The user clicks "add to cart" for product A
* On the page for product B, the user chooses address B from a <select> that the page populated from information on past shipping addresses.
* The user clicks "add to cart" for product B
* The checkout page knows that products A and B are getting shipped to different addresses so it can show them in different sections.

Also, why is sectioning better than using two forms for the example in the spec? One of the complexities with arbitrary sectioning is how to display the multiple sections in the browser's rAc UI. Choosing multiple sets of information for different sections at once can be overwhelming/confusing. How are UAs expected to communicate what section goes with each profile? Surely UAs aren't going to show "red" and "blue" for the example in the spec but it's not so straightforward to find an appropriate label/heading. A <fieldset> could have multiple sections so one can't just find the first <fieldset> parent and use its <legend>. It's also possible there isn't a <fieldset> or <legend> and so UAs may then use the outlining algorithm to find headings. I'm not sure if the ability to have arbitrary sections is worth the complexity this adds. How are other UAs planning on supporting multiple arbitrary sections? I'd like to hear more of an argument supporting this feature before implementing it. Is this something that others intend to implement?

Thanks,
Matthew Noorenberghe

[1] http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/association-of-controls-and-forms.html#attr-fe-autocomplete

Received on Wednesday, 14 May 2014 01:17:50 UTC