field "METHOD" in "<FORM>"

ts ([email protected])
Mon, 25 Oct 93 17:35:24 +0100


> How about:
> <FORM ACTION="http://server/database">
> <SELECT NAME="action"><OPTION>update<OPTION>create<OPTION>delete</SELECT>
> ...
> We should strive for a design where the method is implicit in the users
> actions (e.g., when selecting a hypertext the GET method is implicit,
> however shift-right_button might imply HEAD instead) and not hardcoded in
> the link.

I want a french version, i.e. :

<FORM ACTION="http://server/database">
<SELECT NAME="action"><OPTION>modification<OPTION>creation<OPTION>destruction</SELECT>

When I select "modification", client don't know that it must use method
"PUT", example :

When I select "modification", I don't want receive :

GET /database?action=modification&....

but I want receive :

PUT /database?...

> This (a database interface) does bring up another issue. Let's say I have
> a database where one of the elements is a large piece of text (e.g., a
> bug report). You cannot currently represent this with forms. Why?
> Because when you try and put the "VALUE" in <INPUT SIZE="64,30"
> VALUE="...50K of text..."> I'll bet just about every parser we have is
> going to break. The "easy" way around this is to define a new input tag
> that is a container
> <h2>Bug report contents</h2>
> <TXTIN SIZE="64,30">
> default text in container
> </TXTIN>
> I'll leave it to the SGML folks to solve this problem (which I believe
> is important). Attributes in SGML are next to useless. Note that you
> could it like this:
> <INPUT><VALUE>...</VALUE><LABEL>press here</LABEL></INPUT>
> That way, browsers that don't understand INPUT would still show
> the textual content and get an idea about what was going on.
>

I've very large piece of text in a database (PostScript graphic) I don't
store the text in the database but the pathname (or URL) of the documents.

Guy Decoux