Re: Idea for new form input type

Dave_Raggett ([email protected])
Fri, 25 Feb 1994 15:58:36 --100


>> One way of combining the two ideas is for the TEXTAREA widget to show
>> a file menu in addition to the vertical and horizontal scrollbars.
>> Surely this more general approach would be better than a simple file
>> name widget?

> Are you really comfortable with dragging an executable or image file
> into a TEXTAREA window. The conception of dropping binary data into
> a text window seems very odd. Not to mention the fact that the
> implementation would be very difficult. What do you do if someone
> has typed in data and then drops in a binary file? Also, all current
> implementations of TEXTAREA would have to be completely rewritten.
> (you can't simply use a standard text widget anymore)

I think that we will need to generalise forms to accept a whole
variety of input and the right way to go is to make the widgets
smarter rather than forcing users to carefully select between a
set of fields to find the right one for the current type of object.
Right now you can enter good ol' text, but pretty soon when all
mailers and usenet viewers support multimedia, users will want
the same out of www forms too.

This *will* mean writing new widgets since current operating systems
weren't designed with this kind of thing in mind - but then thats
progress for you ... :-)

I hope to see you at the WWW Conference and look forward to a good
debate on next steps for forms then.

Cheers,

Dave Raggett