INPUT enhancements - was Re: SELECT NEST proposal

MegaZone wrote:
> 
> Once upon a time Simon Cox shaped the electrons to say...
> >> What do you think sirs?
> >- & "madams", I should think.
> 
> It was a MST3K injoke.

Well, I guess broadcasting injokes will inevitably mislead.  
Best to keep them to the incrowd to avoid offence.  
 
> >Now, what about (ii) sliders and dials,  (iii) multi-click imagemaps.
> 
> Silders and dials I think would be very useful.  

I suggest <INPUT TYPE="range" NAME=string>
but there are quite a few attributes that are needed, at least:  
1.  variable type - float, int, ?alpha
2.  limits - min & max, and
3.  granularity/quanta
4.  selector type - slider|dial - though perhaps this is a client issue
...
5.  selector scaling - linear (default), logarithmic, ?reciprocal,
?square etc
6.  discontinuous ranges?

Introducing these all as additional attibutes for INPUT begins to
overload it 
somewhat.  Suggestions?
 
> I'm not sure how multi-click imagemaps would function though.

I have a form which includes

<input type="image" src="./searchmap.gif" alt="Map of Australia">

which returns x=n&y=n to the cgi.  I'd like to be able to use 

<input type="image" maxlength=p src="./searchmap.gif" alt="Map of
Australia">

to return x1=n&y1=n&x2=n&y2=n...xp=n&yp=n etc - or something equivalent 
(something that looked more like an array would be good, of course).  
Maxlength is used to specify the number of clicks on the image before 
the form is "submitted" (NB <input type="image" ...> already implies
type="submit"), 
with maxlength defaulting to 1 for type="image", which is the current
behaviour.  
As you all can see, this proposal does NOT require any additions to
HTML, 
but does require enhancements to the clients ...

(NB  I think that "alt" may not be valid within INPUT, but I _always_
try 
to give alt's for images, and I think this may have been an oversight?)
-- 
__________________________________________________
Dr Simon Cox - Australian Geodynamics Cooperative Research Centre
CSIRO Exploration & Mining, PO Box 437, Nedlands, WA 6009 Australia
T:  +61 9 389 8421   F:  +61 9 389 1906   simon@ned.dem.csiro.au
http://www.ned.dem.csiro.au/unrestricted/people/CoxSimon/

Received on Tuesday, 11 March 1997 21:46:41 UTC