Re: SELECT structures with lots of OPTIONs (fwd)

On Sun, 12 Oct 1997, MegaZone wrote:

> Sorry for the delay, I've been at InterOp...

Thanks for getting back to us, I hope InterOp was fun.

> >A compromise is to get the HTML-WG to agree to something like:
> ><form>
> >  <p>Nested selections
> >  <select name=pizza>
> >    <optgroup name=size>
> >      <option>medium
> >      <option>large
> >    <optgroup name=toppings>
> >      <option>onions
> >      <option>meat balls
> >  </select>
> ></form>
> 
> I don't see how this is substantially different from the original proposal
> for basic organization, and it does not appear to allow for the hierarchy
> development.

If arbitrary nesting is needed (this isn't clear) its a simple
matter to make the end tag for OPTGROUP required. You can then nest
OPTGROUPs as needed. This does need a decision now, though, since it
has to be part of the DTD.

> I view the use of 'name' on OPTGROUP as misleading.  Authors will expect
> that to be returned from the form because of convention, and it will not
> be for all existing clients.

Perhaps, but then again, at some point we may want to return it in a
revision to the form spec. Using 'label' as suggested by Al Gilman
would be ok.
...
> This is similar to my old 'nest' proposal and suffers the same problem - 
> what do you do when a selection is viable under multiple subgroups?  It
> will appear multiple times in the collapsed list on older UAs.  And what
> does it mean to select it in one place but not in another?

This can be easily handled in the server script, and indeed it may
be useful to know in which context the selection was made.

Regards,

-- Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org> http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett
phone: +44 122 578 2984 (or 2521) +44 385 320 444 (gsm mobile)
World Wide Web Consortium (on assignment from HP Labs)

Received on Tuesday, 14 October 1997 10:10:23 UTC