Re: [whatwg] Web Forms 2.0 - select element
Ian Hickson wrote: On Wed, 12 Oct 2005, Jon Levell wrote: A simple use-case for this is a web-based email program. With the inbox shown, messages can be marked as selected with check-boxes then actions applied to the selection with a select box. If 5 messages are selected and then say marked as important and then 2 more messages are selected and then the operation is repeated the onchange handler is not called. This is inappropriate use of a select. On the long term, the menu features of WA1 will hopefully address your need more directly. On the short term, I would recommend simply setting the value of the select back to a neutral default in onblur=, or something along those lines. You are right, on reflection that isn't such a good use case but I do maintain that there are good use cases for it. Slightly less familiar than an email app hence I (wrongly) used that one first. The actual situation I want to use it in is as follows. I have a dynamic web page that represents a table in a relational database. Each row in the table is a row on the page. Some columns refer to other tables, these columns have a select box at the top of the page containing a list of all the values that entries in this column could be changed to. If rows are selected and then a value in the select box is chosen then that value is set for all selected rows. The values shown in the select box will vary as you navigate around the database - I don't think the menu is appropriate - it could be very long and will vary when you have a similar view of two different tables. I don't think I'd use it in a desktop program. Setting the value to a neutral default with onblur= is better but still not ideal - the list could be long and common options are likely to be grouped together (if the target database table is organised). I admit that such use cases are much rarer - are they worth bothering about at such a late stage - or do you think my usage here is inappropriate as well? Jon Levell.
Re: [whatwg] Web Forms 2.0 - select element
On Sun, 16 Oct 2005, Jon Levell wrote: I have a dynamic web page that represents a table in a relational database. Each row in the table is a row on the page. Some columns refer to other tables, these columns have a select box at the top of the page containing a list of all the values that entries in this column could be changed to. If rows are selected and then a value in the select box is chosen then that value is set for all selected rows. This works today, no? This is a frequent idiom in desktop UIs; you select a bunch of things, then select a value from a dropdown. If all the selected items had the same value, it is selected already (so selecting it again will have no effect). If all the selected items have not got the same value, then the dropdown will be blank, and selecting a value will make it apply. (Checkboxes have a UI for this too, tri-state checkboxes. This currently isn't supported by HTML.) It's pretty bad UI for a select to do something if you reselect the current selection, IMHO. -- Ian Hickson U+1047E)\._.,--,'``.fL http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A/, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,. Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
