Firefox/Feature Brainstorming:Form handling and text areas: Difference between revisions
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* Regular expression search and replace. | * Regular expression search and replace. | ||
* <strike>Spell checking.</strike> Thanks! | * <strike>Spell checking.</strike> Thanks! | ||
* Improve spell checking by switching from MySpell to the far-superior HunSpell (this is a direct descendant of MySpell and is the spell checking system now used by new versions of Open Office). There's a list of all the improvements in [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=319778 bug 319778]. This may also allow us to ship some dictionaries other than En-US in our localized builds (e.g. Hungarian). | |||
* Grammar checking functionality similar to Spell checking (Grammar mistakes is just as prolific an bad spelling) | * Grammar checking functionality similar to Spell checking (Grammar mistakes is just as prolific an bad spelling) | ||
* Configurable shortcuts and macros. | * Configurable shortcuts and macros. | ||
Revision as of 10:55, 30 October 2006
« Firefox/Feature Brainstorming
External editing of text boxes
- Allow an external editor (vim, emacs, textpad, etc) to edit text in form text boxes
- Currently supported by plug-ins, but only on some platforms; should be available everywhere
- As more and more apps move towards web services, the ability to effectively edit large blocks of text (wikis, blogs, forums, webmail) becomes more and more critical.
- Include ability to save/restore the text box contents.
- Provide a key binding and also bind to right-click/Edit in text areas.
- References
Search and replace for editable areas
- Search and replace for textareas and editable iframes
Full featured editing of text areas
Much writing nowadays is done in text areas: wikis, blogs, forums, webmail. Text areas need full featured editing support:
- Unlimited undo/redo.
- Regular expression search and replace.
Spell checking.Thanks!- Improve spell checking by switching from MySpell to the far-superior HunSpell (this is a direct descendant of MySpell and is the spell checking system now used by new versions of Open Office). There's a list of all the improvements in bug 319778. This may also allow us to ship some dictionaries other than En-US in our localized builds (e.g. Hungarian).
- Grammar checking functionality similar to Spell checking (Grammar mistakes is just as prolific an bad spelling)
- Configurable shortcuts and macros.
- Allow easy saving of text area contents on the local machine.
- Automatic safety saves, so that the contents of a text area are never lost.
- Allow resizing of text areas, and splitting into two views.
- See also
- Life in a TEXTAREA by Adam Rifkin
WYSIWYG Text Area
Enhanced the TEXTAREA tag to provide a WYSIWYG editor that generates HTML code. How many different Javascript, ActiveX, Applet and AJAX solutions exist for this problem? How many of them actually work? None. Let's fix this problem once and do it right. Imagine:
<TEXTAREA NAME="foo" TYPE="wysiwyg">
The user would see a text box with WYSIWYG editing controls. When the form submits, the field would contain HTML code for the user's content. Other browsers would ignore the new flag and display a standard TEXTAREA.
EVERYONE needs this, including this Wiki.
Editable dropdowns
- Enhanced SELECT tag to allow the user to type new values into the dropdown or accept one of the provided options. Examples in abound in real applications but in a form, the only solution is to provide an input box and a comment like "select a value or enter a new one".
- Enhance the SELECT more by allowing HTML in an OPTION. Will allow for images, bold/italic text and much more in an option. (Restriction necessary as e.g. a SELECT in an OPTION doesn't make sense).