Re: Web-Forms 2.0: upload. Button apperance

w3c@dv-life.ru wrote:

> Why button appearanse is UA-dependent? I can't find any example
> where caption of button is user-defined. CSS-styling of
> <input type-file> is a problem also.

The reasons for standard HTML (4.01 and down) is that it is not the
responsibility of HTML to define details of appearance.  Where this is 
possible, it is the responsibility of styling languages, so www-style 
would be a more appropriate list.

For form controls, in particular, a reasons for user agents not allowing 
styling are:

- controls tend to be complex to implement and the GUI platform
   already implements them, presumably correctly;

- variations from standard control behaviour for the platform mean
   that users have to re-learn how controls work, which makes the
   browsers, or, if as many designers seem to want, sites more
   difficult to learn.  For many   first time users of Windows,
   particularly the elderly, even learning the standard controls i
   s difficult.

In the end, HTML is an information communication tool, not a graphical 
tool.  Tools like PDF and SVG are closer to the graphical, with the 
trend being for SVG to be used for particularly graphical uses.  I 
would, however, discourage the use of excessive customisation for 
applications that are not being used many times a day by the same 
person, and encourage the provision of an easily reachable version using 
standard control, for the benefit of people who were not brought up on 
using Windows and decorative user interfaces.

Received on Friday, 11 May 2007 08:19:17 UTC