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by econ 30 days ago
Some html tags for things people actually do online would be a game changer.

Content editable is as old as Rome but obvious things are still missing like a rich text input area with the obvious options like italic and bold. But why not a <quote> with some sensible attributes. And <code type="text/php"> with highlighting.

It would also be sensible to have standardized forms that the webmaster can't modify in any way.

You could also have an <index> that points at a json. Blogspot use to have tags like that. Something like:

   <index src="index.json" max="100"> 
     <h3><title/></h3>
   </index>
Then the title tag is replaced by the "title": from the json. Could have a pagination tag too. Need to flesh out things like requesting the next json when one gets to the end. Not impossible.

Perhaps there is even room for commercial post ranking solutions.

1 comments

What kinds of forms do you have in mind?

Another ask of mine would be standard page formats, such that there could be standard styles which could be consistently applied to them. Article, index, search, gallery, discussion/thread, off the top of my head.

Stop everyone from reinventing the registration form so that it can be filled out without all the fuzzy business. You specify the fields you need and where it should post. Then have no further control over it.

Have the browser bar show it is a standard form for site: example.com which means no [3rd party] js listening in on personal information. Validate and format all countries adresses correctly. Get email addresses and names right

https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-...

If you let me (or random Joe) design it it will no doubt be wrong in multiple ways. It will probably zoom annoyingly on iphones, I will ask for the state name outside the us and I should really ask for your mum's birthday and maiden name. I will disable right click, mess up tab index and ruin accessibility with a gray on gray font. Should I wrap table rows in labels?

Why should everyone have to implement this if 100 million people already tried and mostly got it wrong?

Now the hard part:

Which fields are allowed?

Which aren't?

It's not so hard but does require some debate and research. Only the sensitive info needs to be contained. For [say] a webshop you have at least the name, address info, email and phone number. Perhaps payment info or coupon codes could be included.

Gradually make it more sophisticated.

It's just an example. The point is for stuff used often enough to find its way into html and improve.

The time date picker was a fun idea but needs work.

Search suggestions was a good idea but the implementation is still horrific.

Basic table sort doesn't seem very exotic but you could add many data types.

Everyone is using toggles rather than checkboxes. I know how to doctor this with css and labels but its an ugly hack.

https://www.w3schools.com/howto/howto_css_switch.asp

Thanks.

Coming up with a standard form is of course the hard part, but the basics you suggest are probably in there. There is of course all the bit about falsehoods programmers believe about names, addresses, emails, and the rest:

<https://ctemm.me/falsehoods/>

<https://hn.algolia.com/?q=falsehoods%20programmers%20believe...>