[WSG] textarea rows cols - presentation in xhtml?
Why is it that rows and cols are required attributes for the textarea element, even in xhtml? They strike me as being purely presentational, and not really needed: in the absense of styling, browsers could apply arbitrary defaults as they do with text input field width. I can't find any reference to this oddity on the w3c site or elsewhere. Any suggestions? Paul ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] textarea rows cols - presentation in xhtml?
I've wondered about this one as well, my guess is that 1. they figured the attributes were to important to drop in the event of non-css user agents, or more likely 2. they didn't change it because xhtml1.x was really not much more than a reformulation of html into xml. To get real xhtml we will have to wait for xhtml2, xforms and all that good stuff. (there are no cols or rows in xforms). This was done in order to maintain backwards compatibility, something xhtml2 will break. Not a great answer, but that's all I can come up with. Alan Paul Novitski wrote: Why is it that rows and cols are required attributes for the textarea element, even in xhtml? They strike me as being purely presentational, and not really needed: in the absense of styling, browsers could apply arbitrary defaults as they do with text input field width. I can't find any reference to this oddity on the w3c site or elsewhere. Any suggestions? Paul
Re: [WSG] textarea rows cols - presentation in xhtml?
It could be argued that it is more than presentation. It indicates to the user about the quantity or usage of the textarea; the size of text fields is a usability topic. If you were told to write a "Summary of your proposal", and given 8 lines instead of 2 lines, you would probably write a completely different passage of text. - Original Message - From: Alan Trick To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Sent: Tuesday, April 05, 2005 8:15 AM Subject: Re: [WSG] textarea rows cols - presentation in xhtml? I've wondered about this one as well, my guess is that 1. they figured the attributes were to important to drop in the event of non-css user agents,or more likely 2. they didn't change it because xhtml1.x was really not much more than a reformulation of html into xml. To get real xhtml we will have to wait for xhtml2, xforms and all that good stuff. (there are no cols or rows in xforms). This was done in order to maintain backwards compatibility, something xhtml2 will break.Not a great answer, but that's all I can come up with.AlanPaul Novitski wrote: Why is it that rows and cols are required attributes for the textarea element, even in xhtml? They strike me as being purely presentational, and not really needed: in the absense of styling, browsers could apply arbitrary defaults as they do with text input field width. I can't find any reference to this oddity on the w3c site or elsewhere. Any suggestions? Paul
Re: [WSG] textarea rows cols - presentation in xhtml?
At 03:00 PM 4/4/2005, Sigurd Magnusson wrote:
It could be argued that it is more than presentation. It indicates to the
user about the quantity or usage of the textarea; the size of text fields
is a usability topic. If you were told to write a Summary of your
proposal, and given 8 lines instead of 2 lines, you would probably write
a completely different passage of text.
Perhaps, but that seems very obviously a presentational aspect to me. The
number of rows and columns of a textarea in no way constrains the amount of
text that can be entered, it only affect the appearance of the input area
on the screen.
input type=text / fields have the optional maxlength attribute to
constrain the length of input, but the apparent size of the input field is
wholly determined by CSS width. The W3C leaves it completely up to you if
you style an input field with {width: 1px;} but maxlength=64000 and it
surprises me that they make an exception with textarea.
Presumably, when they deprecated the width attribute for input but kept
maxlength, they fervently wished they could do the same for textarea but
couldn't, since textarea wasn't born with a maxlength and they probably
didn't deem it wise to tack one on. I wouldn't be surprised if this detail
generated considerable debate, although I can't find any reference to the
decision-making process on their site.
Regards,
Paul
**
The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/
See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
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Re: [WSG] textarea rows cols - presentation in xhtml?
The number of rows and columns of a textarea in no way constrains the
amount of text that can be entered, it only affect the appearance of the
input area on the screen.
I agree it doesn't technically constrain the user, but it does instruct a
user how much they are expected to write. As power users, we would both know
we could type in any quantity of text, however casual users will expect the
amount of text they write in has a relationship with the size of the text
area. A blind reader, a search engine, a lynx browser, and so on, can more
easily interpret the intended use of a text area with cols/rows.
but the apparent size of the input field is wholly determined by CSS
width.
Not wholly--XHTML 1.1 continues to have the size attribute for the input
element, and this is akin to cols for the textarea.
http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-modularization/abstract_modules.html#s_extformsmodule
We can only surmise that W3C had people touting both opinions, and this
shows a comprimise?
This matter might be better dealt with in XForms or other forthcoming form
standards.
Siggy
- Original Message -
From: Paul Novitski [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org
Sent: Tuesday, April 05, 2005 10:45 AM
Subject: Re: [WSG] textarea rows cols - presentation in xhtml?
At 03:00 PM 4/4/2005, Sigurd Magnusson wrote:
It could be argued that it is more than presentation. It indicates to the
user about the quantity or usage of the textarea; the size of text fields
is a usability topic. If you were told to write a Summary of your
proposal, and given 8 lines instead of 2 lines, you would probably write
a completely different passage of text.
Perhaps, but that seems very obviously a presentational aspect to me. The
number of rows and columns of a textarea in no way constrains the amount
of text that can be entered, it only affect the appearance of the input
area on the screen.
input type=text / fields have the optional maxlength attribute to
constrain the length of input, but the apparent size of the input field is
wholly determined by CSS width. The W3C leaves it completely up to you if
you style an input field with {width: 1px;} but maxlength=64000 and it
surprises me that they make an exception with textarea.
Presumably, when they deprecated the width attribute for input but kept
maxlength, they fervently wished they could do the same for textarea but
couldn't, since textarea wasn't born with a maxlength and they probably
didn't deem it wise to tack one on. I wouldn't be surprised if this
detail generated considerable debate, although I can't find any reference
to the decision-making process on their site.
Regards,
Paul
**
The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/
See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
for some hints on posting to the list getting help
**
**
The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/
See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
for some hints on posting to the list getting help
**
