Feedback wanted: revalidate forms for direct input and file upload

Dear all,

Feedback from Alastair a week or two ago have prompted action on an  
older usability enhancement idea.
In a way similar to how the results of the validation of an online  
document include a form to validate the document again (allowing a  
recursive process of fixing and checking), the idea was to provide a  
similar mechanism for direct input and file upload.

For direct input, Brett created a patch that just works, and we'll  
have it included in the upcoming release of the validator: the  
validation results include a textarea pre-filled with the source code  
checked (along with modifications such as doctype override, etc), and  
one can edit this source and check it again. That's great.

This can be tested, as usual, on the dev instance over at:
http://qa-dev.w3.org/wmvs/HEAD/

For the file upload mode, there is no perfect solution, because, for  
security reasons, a browser will never, ever pre-populate a file  
selection box. This leaves us with two choices:

1) the validation results include an empty file selection box, with  
instructions telling the user that the file has to be added again.
This is still better usability-wise than having to return to the home  
page and fill in the options again, but it is not hard to imagine  
people complaining that the validator is broken, why does't it pre- 
fill the box, etc, etc.

2) the validation results include a textarea pre-filled with the  
source of the uploaded file, just like in the direct input mode. This  
allows for easy modification and re-validation of the content, but  
the shift in mode (upload -> direct) is plagued with technical issues  
(no media type, hence, different XML detection modes; charset in  
direct input is always utf-8...) which would, in some case, cause  
revalidation to give seemingly incoherent results.

I think the potential for confusion in 2) is too big to use the idea  
as is, so I guess 1) is the way to go. If anyone has an idea, or  
thoughts on how to make this work, they would be much welcome.

Thank you,
-- 
olivier

Received on Thursday, 13 September 2007 02:00:50 UTC