RE: One more possible hole in UI?

Hi Raman,

The second choice (<textbox echo="*">...</texbox>) seems slightly off in
that there is no way to concretely express the default for the echo
attribute.  The default if absent is to 'echo the keypresses', but if
one wanted to express the default, one would be out of luck.

The first solution (<password>...</password>) seems preferable.  I agree
that naming the element 'password' does (or at least should) limit the
use to passwords (though not enforceable). It is hard to show that the
alternative (<textbox type="password" ...>...</textbox>) is less
beneficial, but there is a decent rationale:

If in the future we decide to add a lot of attributes that are very
specific to passwords (e.g. hash="sha1", which would send a hash of the
password rather than the password itself), then suddenly we have to
either explain why the special attribute is only applicable to textboxes
of type password or we have to apply the special attribute to all types
of textboxes, which may not be preferable (e.g. there doesn't seem to be
much need for sending the hash of in-the-clear text).

There's lots more that could be said here, but this seems sufficient
justification to choose <password>

John Boyer
Senior Product Architect, Software Development
Internet Commerce System (ICS) Team
PureEdge Solutions Inc. 
Trusted Digital Relationships
v: 250-708-8047  f: 250-708-8010
1-888-517-2675   http://www.PureEdge.com <http://www.pureedge.com/>  	
 	


-----Original Message-----
From: T. V. Raman [mailto:tvraman@almaden.ibm.com]
Sent: Friday, March 23, 2001 11:41 AM
To: Berin Loritsch
Cc: tvraman@almaden.ibm.com; XForms Mailing List
Subject: Re: One more possible hole in UI?


the two choices I am presently considering are:
1) Have a <password>...</password>
element analogous to textbox 

2) (preference as of last two days)
<textbox echo="*">...</textbox>
(default value of echo echoes chars as you type --echo ="*"
displays '*' echo ="#" displays '#'

Since you say you're implementing this, what would your
preference be?

By the way, I'll respond to the other half of your first
note in the next couple of days--
>>>>> "Berin" == Berin Loritsch <bloritsch@apache.org> writes:

    Berin> "T. V. Raman" wrote:
    >>  coming in the next draft.

    Berin> (Password textbox issue)

    Berin> Is there any way to get a feel for the current
    Berin> discussion on this?  Is this going to be a CSS
    Berin> style element?

    Berin> The reason I ask is that I am writing a server
    Berin> side form processing system based on the XForms
    Berin> spec, and if I have to augment the current XForms
    Berin> with current needs--I want to do so in a fashion
    Berin> that is closest to what the end spec is going to
    Berin> be.

-- 
Best Regards,
--raman
------------------------------------------------------------

IBM Research: Human Language Technologies
Phone:        1 (408) 927 2608
Fax:        1 (408) 927 3012
Email:        tvraman@us.ibm.com
WWW:      http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/raman
PGP:          http://cs.cornell.edu/home/raman/raman.asc 
Snail:        IBM Almaden Research Center,
              650 Harry Road
              San Jose 95120

Received on Friday, 23 March 2001 17:32:29 UTC