[Amorya]

This thread is for things that it'd be cool if a web browser did. Preferably ones that don't require non-standard HTML


My first: hierarchical popup menus. This could be done with existing HTML using the optgroup tag to form each submenu.


Amorya

[Amorya]

Another one relating to menus. This one probably won't happen, as there's a brief chance it could mis-guess what the web designer intended and break a site...


In the OS, there are two kinds of popup menus. Ones which let you choose from a list of mutually exclusive options, and ones that perform commands. The former have two arrowheads on MacOS X, the latter have only one arrowhead.

On the web, menus are used for both purposes... although only one widget exists!

Since we're not extending HTML here, I got thinking if there was any way to guess which kind of menu should be displayed.


For the command (single-arrow) menus, there will definitely be some Javascript associated with it (to perform the command). The first item in the menu will be the default selected item, and this item will have no value, only a name. (This is because the first item is just a placeholder showing the 'title' of the menu - it does nothing.)

If all those conditions are true, the browser could use the command menu style, and interpret the first entry in the menu as the unselectable title for the menu.

If any of those conditions are not true, menus would work as they always have.


Just a brief idea that might make web sites more Mac-like when displayed on a Mac!



Amorya

[Amorya]

Number three: a 'well' control for a file upload box.

This one's a no-brainer. For an example of a well, look in the Desktop Background prefpane - the well is the indented box that lets you drag files into it. Inside the well should be the file icon and name, and there should optionally (in browser prefs or hidden prefs, default=on) be a Choose button underneath the well.

If the size of the submit thingy is limited by CSS, the submit button (if displayed) should jump to the right. If it gets smaller still, the filename should be moved to the right of the file icon in the well.

Safari nearly offers this. It displays the file icon/name, instead of a disabled field with a pathname. But it's not a well!


Amorya

[Krypton]

I think you need to contact the W3C rather than the browser manufacturers.

I agree with your suggestions, but these should be suggested as extensions to HTML (like Safari's upcoming canvas feature) rather than things companies should implement.

[Amorya]

Originally posted by Krypton:
I think you need to contact the W3C rather than the browser manufacturers.

I agree with your suggestions, but these should be suggested as extensions to HTML (like Safari's upcoming canvas feature) rather than things companies should implement.

AFAICS, these are more issues of how the browser renders stuff. (Apart from my suggestion on two kinds of menu - that one should be in the spec IMO, as doing it otherwise is a bit of a hack).

The option groups to submenus are just another way of displaying groups of options. OmniWeb currently groups them by just indenting them slightly - a submenu would make more sense.

The W3C spec doesn't (unless I'm mistaken) specify exactly what controls a browser should use to implement forms. I know that xforms (a proposed future forms specification) makes an explicit point of not doing so... the reason being things like palmtops have a different library of controls.



Ok, next suggestion...



People will disagree with me here, but I want double-click to follow link. Single click will select link, which lets people do things like Get Info on a link without needing to use context menus. I used an implementation of Opera for EPOC which had this... on EPOC it was by necessity (as it's a pen-based interface and so has no right-click), but I just thought it was much better.


Amorya
who needs to learn enough Cocoa to write his own browser!