How do HTML5 forms lower to prompts?
Element Required? free-form? ngrams editable? options multiple? Notes
text/search @required Yes from page !@readonly || !@disabled ref'd by @list No
radio @required No - ... inputs sharing name No <label> refers to individual options instead.
checkbox (1)@required No - ... Yes/No/synonyms No
Checkbox @required No - ... inputs sharing name Yes <label> refers to individual options instead.
submit No No - Yes None No Target read as METHOD ACTION, labelled by @value or innertext.
<select> @required No - !@readonly || !@disabled child <option>s @multiple
<textarea> @required Yes from page !@readonly || !@disabled None Yes
button UNSUPPORTED (requires JavaScript)
<legend> Yes (shows) No - No None No Serves purely as a label.
<output> No Yes None No None No Requires JS, but it'd be nice to have an alternative.
password @required Yes None !@readonly || !@disabled "New password" No Obscured in output.
reset No No - Yes None No Links to current form (unfilled).
color @required No - !@readonly || !@disabled CSS3 color keywords No Benefits from a system dialog, given it's inherantly a visual concept.
date @required Yes day/month/year/ago ... "Today" No Reprocessed into ISO date.
datetime-local @requiredYes day/month/year/hour/minutes ... "Now" No Reprocessed into ISO date.
email @required Yes @/./alphadigit/etc ... @multiple spaces removed, instantiates punctuation
file @required Yes (custom recognizer) ... @multiple Benefits from system dialog
month @required Yes month/year ... "This month" No Reprocessed into ISO date
number/range@required Yes digit ... No
tel @required Yes digits (ignore -) ... No
time @required Yes digits/am/pm ... "Now" No Reprocessed into ISO time.
url @required Yes browser history/alnum/punctuation ... bookmarks No spaces removed, instantiates punctuation, infers https
week (AS PER date, reprocessed)
Attributes:
@value - prefilled value, if set removes from initial prompts.
@readonly/@disabled - disables editting, removes from initial prompts.
@size - IGNORED
@maxlength - postprocessing validation
@min/@max - postprocessing validation
@multiple - sets this prompt to repeat until user says "next".
@pattern - gives hint as to punctuation to expect, postprocessing validation.
@placeholder - fallback for <label>
@required - adds to initial prompts. If none are required it'll consider all inputs required.
@step - prostprocessing validation.
@autofocus - triggers this form mode.
@height/@width - IGNORED
@list - sets named options.
@autocomplete - IGNORED, always autocompletes.
Be nice to let inputs their own ngrams/vocabulary!
@formaction, @formenctype, @formmethod, @formtarget - where to send form data.
@formnovalidate - disables postprocessing validation.
Be nice to let forms link to newline seperated "phrases" which can be used to fill in multiple inputs simultaneously, more conversationally.
## Collaborator thoughts
@alcinnz
1) Knowing that you have a tree rather than a buffer as the underlying data structure for the output is the most important detail. It means, for example, that you can treat forms that are children of navigation differently than those that appear in tags more likely to be the focus of the page
2) You'll probably have at least 2 C APIs before you're done - one that tries for minimal processing on the C side and another that tries to expose as much as possible to C programmers. The things I want a library for are going to take much longer than what I want a browser for, if that helps you to focus on defining that boundary in a way that's minimally invasive to producing a GUI application for the desktop
3) If you just want a regexp engine that can compile and evaluate Posix regexps supplied by developers, you probably won't find much better than the TRE library. Ignoring the extra features, it has a small code footprint and makes efficient algorithm choices for matching
Free text is a whole other issue. You owe it to yourself to make it as easy as possible for others to serve their personal biases with minimal intervention from you 😎