Re: Error in HTML 4.01 specification of 'onchange' event

>
>
>>Common sense should rule design here not specifications. If the user is 
>>changing the value of a select by using arrow keys, the form should 
>>never be unconditionally submitted. If the browser does so, it is a bug 
>>and should be fixed.
>>    
>>
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>The browser does not do it; the web designer's scripting does it.
>A lot of web designers believe that forms should submit when someone
>changes a selection.  Unfortunately they forget that some users use
>the keyboard, so they make the onchange for select something like
>"this.form.submit()"  (They probably do it with a subroutine.)
>
>  
>

Ahhh. Yes now I see it. There are those websites that use a drop down to 
navigate. Not a good design but works in some cases.

Now if say Mozilla ignored the literal spec of onchange (god help us) 
and implemented this new functionality, websites that use drop down 
navigation could easily make code changes to handle the new 
functionality. For instance, they could detect the keyCode value on the 
event and submit only when appropriate. Just a matter of adding an extra 
line of JavaScript.

Its just too bad that the specification like onchange were written way 
back in 1999 where it represented the functionality of the predominant 
browser of the time and not how browsers *should* function. Here we are 
6 years later (1000 Internet years) and such specifications are still 
being used to hold back useful functionality in our most beloved browsers.

Thanks for the chat Dave.

Regards,
Tim

Received on Saturday, 6 August 2005 09:05:53 UTC