Re: file upload extension

<Jukka.Korpela@hut.fi> wrote:

> I might be missing something, but wouldn't that WANTTYPE duplicate
> the ACCEPT attribute which has been in the specs since 1995
> (RFC 1867, later adopted to HTML 3.2)? Though it seems that no
> browser vendor cared to implement it.

Indeed. HTML itself does not seem to need much change to support device
upload; browsers just need to get better. First they should at least make
the accept attribute work, then it would be useful if they could also allow
any datatype that the system knew how to convert to one specified in the
accept attribute.

From the proposal <http://www.bovik.org/device-upload.html>:

> If the value of the device parameter is "any", the operator may be offered
a
> choice of all available supported devices and files, restricted to the
> choices compatible with the MIME types specified in the accept attribute,
if
> present.

I would have thought this should always be the behaviour of a file upload
field; my computer doesn't *have* a microphone, for example, but I *can* get
my voice onto a file by messing around with my TV card. I'd *always* want
the
ability to choose to upload from file or microphone for audio/* types, and
I'd *always* want to choose a file or a scanner for image/* types, and so
on.
Which makes the proposed 'device' attribute redundant in my opinion.

Extending the maxlength attribute to file inputs in general seems useful and
pretty harmless. I'm not sure how often maxtime would be useful though.

-- 
Andrew Clover
Technical Support
1VALUE.com AG

Received on Tuesday, 29 February 2000 03:56:10 UTC