[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@redhat.com
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@redhat.com> To: "engine-devel" <engine-devel@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@redhat.com _______________________________________________ Engine-devel mailing list Engine-devel@ovirt.org http://lists.ovirt.org/mailman/listinfo/engine-devel
----- Original Message -----
From: "Einav Cohen" <ecohen@redhat.com> To: "Greg Sheremeta" <gshereme@redhat.com> Cc: "engine-devel" <engine-devel@ovirt.org> Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2014 12:14:51 PM Subject: Re: [Engine-devel] attn ui devs: why do we use inputs for labels?
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.
If that's the reason, it must be a quirky browser thing. I can select and copy <label>s in Chrome.
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@redhat.com> To: "engine-devel" <engine-devel@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@redhat.com _______________________________________________ Engine-devel mailing list Engine-devel@ovirt.org http://lists.ovirt.org/mailman/listinfo/engine-devel
----- Original Message ----- From: "Greg Sheremeta" <gshereme@redhat.com> Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2014 12:24:51 PM
----- Original Message -----
From: "Einav Cohen" <ecohen@redhat.com> To: "Greg Sheremeta" <gshereme@redhat.com> Cc: "engine-devel" <engine-devel@ovirt.org> Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2014 12:14:51 PM Subject: Re: [Engine-devel] attn ui devs: why do we use inputs for labels?
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.
If that's the reason, it must be a quirky browser thing. I can select and copy <label>s in Chrome.
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?
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@redhat.com> To: "engine-devel" <engine-devel@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@redhat.com _______________________________________________ Engine-devel mailing list Engine-devel@ovirt.org http://lists.ovirt.org/mailman/listinfo/engine-devel
_______________________________________________ Engine-devel mailing list Engine-devel@ovirt.org http://lists.ovirt.org/mailman/listinfo/engine-devel
----- Original Message -----
From: "Einav Cohen" <ecohen@redhat.com> To: "Greg Sheremeta" <gshereme@redhat.com>, "Vojtech Szocs" <vszocs@redhat.com>, "Gilad Chaplik" <gchaplik@redhat.com>, "Daniel Erez" <derez@redhat.com>, "Tomas Jelinek" <tjelinek@redhat.com>, "Lior Vernia" <lvernia@redhat.com>, "Kanagaraj" <kmayilsa@redhat.com>, "Alexander Wels" <awels@redhat.com>, "Alona Kaplan" <alkaplan@redhat.com> Cc: "engine-devel" <engine-devel@ovirt.org> Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2014 10:01:02 PM Subject: Re: [Engine-devel] attn ui devs: why do we use inputs for labels?
----- Original Message ----- From: "Greg Sheremeta" <gshereme@redhat.com> Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2014 12:24:51 PM
----- Original Message -----
From: "Einav Cohen" <ecohen@redhat.com> To: "Greg Sheremeta" <gshereme@redhat.com> Cc: "engine-devel" <engine-devel@ovirt.org> Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2014 12:14:51 PM Subject: Re: [Engine-devel] attn ui devs: why do we use inputs for labels?
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.
If that's the reason, it must be a quirky browser thing. I can select and copy <label>s in Chrome.
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?
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.
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@redhat.com> To: "engine-devel" <engine-devel@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@redhat.com _______________________________________________ Engine-devel mailing list Engine-devel@ovirt.org http://lists.ovirt.org/mailman/listinfo/engine-devel
_______________________________________________ Engine-devel mailing list Engine-devel@ovirt.org http://lists.ovirt.org/mailman/listinfo/engine-devel
participants (3)
-
Einav Cohen -
Greg Sheremeta -
Vojtech Szocs