© 2000 Beth Skwarecki
bethnewt at hotmail dot com
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backwards compatibility with HTML is no longer an option. What I'm thinking now is that this plugin (or whatever) would look for certain comment-like tags inside of forms. One could code in such a way that an ordinary browser would display it as an HTML form, whereas a beth's-plugin-enabled browser would start up a little GUI window that makes things easier on everyone involved. I don't honestly think this is going to happen, nor do I have the expertise to do it myself, but I figure this is enough to tide you over till I can get some more text up here. Won't be long, I promise.
Darn the Web. Darn forms in particular.
Form elements are for small amounts of data that the user submits and is done with. Web applications are nothing of the sort, hence Jakob Nielsen's recommendation to write separate software for specialized tasks. Which misses the point -- the web allows you to write for all platforms while not requiring explicit downloads.
F'rinstance. I'm trying to put together a little web-based template to allow people to create a webpage. This wouldn't work as a separate application because the idea is to present something very convenient and very simple that can be finished in a few minutes. A separate software download would kill that idea. I can't do it as a simple series of form pages, either, because it needs to be somewhat flexible. And I would rather be mauled slowly to death by parakeets than create a monstrosity like Outlook Web Access, Microsoft's blatant attempt to ignore the fact that a webpage is not an Office application.
I don't want to turn the web into Office, but when the program is writing form data to a file and users expect a "save" button at the top left of the screen, what are we supposed to do? Explain to the user that HTML forms are supposed to have Submit and Reset buttons at the bottom and so that's what they have to live with?
My solution, of course, is to rant to nobody in particular about the inadequacies of the web.
But, in the "and-while-I'm-dreaming-I'd-also-like-a-pony" tradition, I'll propose something anyway. Might we have a piece of the browser dedicated to running applications? Instead of telling the browser "Make me a page with a little frame on the top, and put images in them, and call these javascript functions..." I could just tell the browser "this is an application and I want a toolbar." Bonus points for not making me learn a new programming language. Super bonus points for using backwards-compatible html: Lynx thinks it's a form, Netscape 9 knows it's an application.
Any volunteers?