Re: SELECT structures with lots of OPTIONs (fwd)

Once upon a time Dave Raggett shaped the electrons to say...
>Thanks for getting back to us, I hope InterOp was fun.

*shrug*  I was basically the technical rep for our booth.  They sent a
number of sales people though...  So I was pretty much chained to the booth
all day.  I managed to get away for 2 hours Friday - so I didn't see much
of the show.  I enjoy meeting the customers anyway, I know many of them since
I run all of our mailing lists.

Anyway, back on topic (and I hope I don't make another typo like by -> buy...)

>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.

I revised my proposal to use label instead of name or value, it seems the 
most appropriate name for the attribute.  If, at some point, we decide to
modify it to return a value, then we can add the name and/or value attributes.

I think it is best to use label now - it doesn't imply that it may be 
returned, and it leaves the other attributes open for future use.

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

The way I look at it, doing it as I propose allows for this OR not.  Making
it a container forces differentiation.

Non differentiated:

<SELECT name="ComOS">
<OPTGROUP id="master1" axis="Product Type" label="Comm Servers">
<OPTGROUP id="group1" axes="master1" axis="Model" label="PortMaster 3">
<OPTGROUP id="group2" axes="master1" axis="Model" label="PortMaster 2">
<OPTION axes="group1" axis="ComOS">3.7.1
<OPTION axes="group1 group2" axis="ComOS">3.7
<OPTION axes="group1 group2" axis="ComOS">3.5
</SELECT>

Differentiated:
<SELECT name="ComOS">
<OPTGROUP id="master1" axis="Product Type" label="Comm Servers">
<OPTGROUP id="group1" axes="master1" axis="Model" label="PortMaster 3">
<OPTGROUP id="group2" axes="master1" axis="Model" label="PortMaster 2">
<OPTION axes="group1" axis="ComOS" value="pm3_3.7.1">3.7.1
<OPTION axes="group1" axis="ComOS" value="pm3_3.7">3.7
<OPTION axes="group1" axis="ComOS" value="pm3_3.5">3.5
<OPTION axes="group2" axis="ComOS" value="pm2_3.7">3.7
<OPTION axes="group2" axis="ComOS" value="pm2_3.5">3.5
</SELECT>


With a container:
<SELECT name="ComOS">
<OPTGROUP label="Comm Servers">
<OPTGROUP label="PortMaster 3">
<OPTION value="pm3_3.7.1">3.7.1
<OPTION value="pm3_3.7">3.7
<OPTION value="pm3_3.5">3.5
</OPTGROUP>
<OPTGROUP label="PortMaster 2">
<OPTION value="pm2_3.7">3.7
<OPTION value="pm2_3.5">3.5
</OPTGROUP>
</OPTGROUP>
</SELECT>

If it is differentiated it will produce duplicate choices in an older
UA.  Which would be unavoidable with containers.  The other method allows
the author to decide how they want to do it.

-MZ
--
Livingston Enterprises - Chair, Department of Interstitial Affairs
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Received on Tuesday, 14 October 1997 16:03:53 UTC