2013-09-26 21:41, Ian Hickson wrote:
There's a lot of <output> examples in the spec; do they help at all?
There are indeed several examples, but they are scattered around; the section that specifically deals with the <output> element, 4.10.15, has only one example.
It is a simple calculator that shows the calculated result in an <output> element. And it is a form with no action attribute and with onsubmit="return false", so it is clearly meant to work in the browser only. That is, the value of the output element is not submitted.
The question then arises why <output> is used, instead of just showing the result in a <span> or <div> element as usual. In fact, none of the examples about <output> have no apparent association with any submission to server-side processing.
Yet, the from the properties defined for <output>, whole point seems to be that the <output> element has a special purpose: it is a control, with a value that may be included in form data upon submission, but its value is not meant to be changed by the user directly, only via actions that may indirectly modify it. Simultaneously, it is normally visible to the user.
As I see it, the difference between <output> and a readonly <input> is that the latter is not meant to be changed by the user *at all*, whereas <output> is not be changed *directly*.
If this interpretation is correct, I think some of it should be somehow expressed in the spec, and there should be at least one example where <output> is seemingly participating in form data submission.
It's of course too late to change the name "output" now, but it is really misleading, since it suggests that the element is just for output (possibly even suggesting that it's really a duplicate of <samp>!). Yet it seems that it primarily computed data (in a broad sense for "computed") to be submitted, though it can, like <input>, be used without submission too. So <computed> or <input type=computed> might have been better. I mention this because this name problem emphasizes the need for explaining what the element is really for.
I still don't quite see *why* <output> has been introduced. I can understand it as a purely logical creation, but what is the practical gain expected to be?
Yucca
