[uf-discuss] Microformats in Form Fields

[Matt Augustine]

Marking up form inputs to associate them with microformat classes would indeed be very useful in Live Clipboard scenarios.  We've discussed techniques for auto-binding Live Clipboard copy controls to microformats within a web page, using either script or rich client code.  Auto-binding paste controls to marked-up forms would complete the circuit.

Matt Augustine
Software Development Engineer
CSA Concept Development Team
Microsoft Corporation


-----Original Message-----
From: microformats-discuss-bounces at microformats.org [mailto:microformats-discuss-bounces at microformats.org] On Behalf Of Brian Suda
Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2006 5:06 AM
To: Microformats Discuss
Subject: Re: Re: [uf-discuss] Microformats in Form Fields

I think we are just about to independantly arrive at Live Clipboard.
The way LiveClipboard works is through the use of a js library that parses the hCard/hCalendar and then inserts them into the form fields that you define.

IF we standardised the form fields to match the same name as hCards (or some mapping) then you are back to a generic base library that anyone can used to "smart paste" structured data into form fields.

By giving more structure to Forms you are accomplishing several things... the posibility to do some sort of introspection on data inputs. This would be a boon to spammers, you are using hForm, now they can easily paste their structured spam data into your comments fields. (i know using obscure fields names is not security - but it is a hurdle to automation). The other cool thing extracting data from a form gets you, is to build things like OpenSearchDescriptions, and/or other formats. I don't think there is critial mass on the web for these sorts of actions because things become so specialised.

-brian

On 9/28/06, Ciaran McNulty <mail at ciaranmcnulty.com> wrote:
> > Lets say you have a personal registration form in your web app, for
> > entering contact data which will later be output as an hCard in
> > various places.
> > What if I was to mark up the form (and fields) with hCard classes?
>
> I've long thought that a form should be marked up as if the data was
> non-editable.  This is especially relevant when presenting an object
> for editing, because the data is all there in the form.
>
> The problem is that under most uF parsing rules, <input> elements'
> @value will not be used to determine their content.  However, a
> <textarea> would be parsable as you'd expect.
>
> I haven't read any previous discussion on this topic though so I don't
> know what the group consensus is...
>
> -Ciaran
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>


--
brian suda
http://suda.co.uk
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