8:02 a.m.
Hi fellow UI developers,
Can someone explain why we are using "input type=text" fields to render labels?
(see screenshot[1]) This seems like bad practice for a few reasons:
* it's not semantic HTML
* inputs do not have variable sizing like text. They cannot shrink down to the size of
the text, which makes positioning difficult.
* common browser extensions such as LastPass can be confused (see screenshot[1] --
lastpass sees these labels for the text fields they are, and attempts to help the user
fill them in -- that's what those gray asterisks are. Very confusing.)
I'd like to pursue correcting this, if possible.
Thanks,
Greg
[1] http://i.imgur.com/AweOhJe.png
Greg Sheremeta
Red Hat, Inc.
Sr. Software Engineer, RHEV
Cell: 919-807-1086
gshereme(a)redhat.com
9:14 a.m.
I could be wrong, but there is a chance that using "input type=text"
allows selecting/copying the text, rather than a plain label, which
doesn't allow that.
I am not sure if there are any (additional?) advantages to using
"input type=text" (the other UI maintainers will probably know
better).
I'd like to pursue correcting this, if possible.
if there is a more "correct" way that won't result in losing any
existing functionality, +1.
----
Thanks,
Einav
----- Original Message -----
> From: "Greg Sheremeta" <gshereme(a)redhat.com>
> To: "engine-devel" <engine-devel(a)ovirt.org>
> Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2014 11:02:15 AM
> Subject: [Engine-devel] attn ui devs: why do we use inputs for labels?
>
> Hi fellow UI developers,
>
> Can someone explain why we are using "input type=text" fields to render
> labels? (see screenshot[1]) This seems like bad practice for a few reasons:
> * it's not semantic HTML
> * inputs do not have variable sizing like text. They cannot shrink down to
> the size of the text, which makes positioning difficult.
> * common browser extensions such as LastPass can be confused (see
> screenshot[1] -- lastpass sees these labels for the text fields they are,
> and attempts to help the user fill them in -- that's what those gray
> asterisks are. Very confusing.)
>
I'd like to pursue correcting this, if possible.
>
> Thanks,
> Greg
>
> [1] http://i.imgur.com/AweOhJe.png
>
> Greg Sheremeta
> Red Hat, Inc.
> Sr. Software Engineer, RHEV
> Cell: 919-807-1086
> gshereme(a)redhat.com
> _______________________________________________
> Engine-devel mailing list
> Engine-devel(a)ovirt.org
> http://lists.ovirt.org/mailman/listinfo/engine-devel
>
2:01 p.m.
there is a good chance that you are right - maybe this used to be the
behavior in old browsers. Do you happen to know what is the behavior
in other (modern) browsers (FF, IE)?
ui maintainers: anything else that you know/recall about why we are
using "input type=text" in our code? any reason to not change it?
9:33 a.m.
----- Original Message -----
I've discussed this with Greg yesterday.
The reason for using <input type="text"> to render *value* labels,
as seen on the "General" sub-tab screenshot [1], is because:
* value text might be too long to fit the logical column
* we want to preserve consistent key/value grid layout (no wrapping)
* we want user to be able to easily copy value text in clipboard
In frontend code, TextBoxLabelBase class represents such (input-based)
labels. It attaches "mousedown" handler on <input> so that when you
right-click the <input>, all content (possibly too long to fit) will
be selected so you can conveniently select "Copy" in context-menu.
If we want to replace <input> with some text-only element, we will
need to address same concerns as mentioned above. Greg told me that
Chrome has issues with right-click select-all-text functionality,
so maybe we can file BZ for current implementation.
That being said, I'm all for improvement. For example, we could have
some <span> (or any other text-only element) that doesn't wrap when
its content is too long. However, we still need to deal with "copy
value that's possibly too long into clipboard" scenario, which is
can be quite problematic.
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4 comments
3 participants
participants (3)
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Einav Cohen -
Greg Sheremeta -
Vojtech Szocs