Bug 27247 – Master bug of datalist element and list attribute implementation

• Status: RESOLVED
• Resolution: CONFIGURATION CHANGED
• Component: Forms

[Kent Tamura]

I'll make a patch to support for `list' attribute.  The UI will be like http://docs.google.com/View?id=dch3zh37_0cf8kc8c4

[Kent Tamura]

Created attachment 33600 [details]
Screenshot produced by actual code

I have almost completed the code.
Because the patch is large, I'll split it into some bugs.

[Anthony Ricaud]

It doesn't look very native. A NSComboBox on MacOS feels nicer : http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Cocoa/Reference/ApplicationKit/Classes/nscombobox_Class/Reference/Reference.html

[Kent Tamura]

(In reply to comment #2)
> It doesn't look very native. A NSComboBox on MacOS feels nicer :
> http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Cocoa/Reference/ApplicationKit/Classes/nscombobox_Class/Reference/Reference.html

Do you think NSComboBox is nicer for <input type=search> or <input type=number> ?

[Kent Tamura]

Created attachment 33765 [details]
Reference patch

This is a patch without ChangeLog and tests, for reference.
I'll submit a complete one after all dependent patches are landed.

[Peter Kasting]

dhyatt was working on <datalist> support, he should be CCed on all bugs about it

[Kent Tamura]

Does anyone have an idea of better UI for list attribute support?
If not, I'll update the patches and request to review them.

[Aryeh Gregor]

FWIW, Opera displays this the same as autocomplete suggestions.  In other words, there's a dropdown that automatically appears when the user focuses the field and starts typing, and he can use the arrow keys or mouse to select an item from it.  This is nice if you're trying to use <datalist> to implement search suggestions -- a combobox UI would be unusable for that use-case.

Related WHATWG thread: http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/whatwg-whatwg.org/2010-January/024794.html

[Kent Tamura]

(In reply to comment #7)
I don't think the UI of Opera is the best. It's hard for users to know that a field has choices provided by the page author.

[Aryeh Gregor]

That's what's wanted for search suggestions -- they should look like browser suggestions.  However, it's not wanted for comboboxes.  It's not clear to me which way is "right".  I've suggested to the WHATWG that perhaps a separate JS-only API should be specced for search suggestions, leaving <datalist> more clearly for comboboxes, but I expect it will be a while before I get a response on that.

[Aryeh Gregor]

Maciej suggested that for type="text", it should use a native combobox widget, while for type="search" it should look like search suggestions:

http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/whatwg-whatwg.org/2010-January/024799.html

Does that make sense to you?

[Kent Tamura]

Hmm, the idea of type-specific appearance makes sense.

So, we'll make the followings for <datalist> and list attribute?

No special UI (text field) ==> Native combo-box
Type=search ==> like search-suggestions
Type=range ==> Markers
Type=color ==> In the color chooser dialog?
Type=number ==> Additional menu button (my original proposal)
date/time types ==> ditto

[Ridley Combs]

Agreed. Reference Safari's Google Search box for type=search.

(In reply to comment #11)
> Hmm, the idea of type-specific appearance makes sense.
> 
> So, we'll make the followings for <datalist> and list attribute?
> 
> No special UI (text field) ==> Native combo-box
> Type=search ==> like search-suggestions
> Type=range ==> Markers
> Type=color ==> In the color chooser dialog?
> Type=number ==> Additional menu button (my original proposal)
> date/time types ==> ditto

[Dongwoo Joshua Im]

Is this patch still going on? It looks almost done, but why it stops here?

[Jon Lee]

<rdar://problem/10069956>

[Bronislav Klucka]

(In reply to comment #14)
> <rdar://problem/10069956>

Hi, I'm trying to stay informed... what does such element/URN/scheme means? How can I look at such content?

[Darin Adler]

Those URLs are for Apple’s internal bug tracking system, Radar. For the most part, they are not useful to anyone who does not work for Apple except to communicate with people who do.

[Tobias Tom]

I assume this issue is still blocked by some stuff in radar?

[Darin Adler]

(In reply to comment #17)
> I assume this issue is still blocked by some stuff in radar?

I don’t think so. Not even sure what that question means.

[Teun]

Please make this very useful feature happen.

[Domenic Denicola]

The spec has been updated with some concrete suggestions on display and string matching that might be helpful for those implementing this: https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/forms.html#attr-input-list

[Alexey Proskuryakov]

*** Bug 188857 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Javan Makhmali]

Related: I just reported bug 203116, "Native text substitutions interfere with HTML <datalist> options resulting in crash"

[Javan Makhmali]

I would like to see bug 201768, comment 2 added to this list as well.

[Ahmad Saleem]

All dependent bugs are closed. Marking as "RESOLVED CONFIGURATION CHANGED". Thanks!