This is an archived snapshot of W3C's public bugzilla bug tracker, decommissioned in April 2019. Please see the home page for more details.

Bug 13566 - use of input type image to send coordinates should be phased out
Summary: use of input type image to send coordinates should be phased out
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: HTML WG
Classification: Unclassified
Component: LC1 HTML5 spec (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Hardware: PC Windows NT
: P2 normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Cynthia Shelly
QA Contact: HTML WG Bugzilla archive list
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords: a11y, a11ytf
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2011-08-03 03:36 UTC by Cynthia Shelly
Modified: 2014-02-10 23:58 UTC (History)
8 users (show)

See Also:

Attachments

Description Cynthia Shelly 2011-08-03 03:36:52 UTC 
HTML 4 advised against using input type=image to send image coordinates, and recommended using image maps instead.  It is time to make this use non-conforming.
Comment 1 Kornel Lesinski 2011-08-03 20:13:17 UTC 
I agree that server-side image maps are a bad idea. 

However, input type=image is still the most reliable way of replacing submit buttons with an image (which is often needed, because different browsers have different and quirky box models for buttons).

AFAIK is such element is only used to submit the form and server ignores the coordinates, then it doesn't cause any problems (keyboard navigation, text browsers just send [0,0]).

I'd prefer type=image to stay conforming until majority of UAs support CSS `content:` property on buttons and inputs.

I wouldn't mind if the spec disallowed use of sent coordinates or required servers to accept (0,0) as a valid input.
Comment 2 Michael[tm] Smith 2011-08-04 05:04:07 UTC 
mass-moved component to LC1
Comment 3 Michael[tm] Smith 2011-11-20 14:52:51 UTC 
Cynthia, any response to comment #1?
Comment 4 Ian 'Hixie' Hickson 2011-11-24 02:26:19 UTC 
EDITOR'S RESPONSE: This is an Editor's Response to your comment. If you are satisfied with this response, please change the state of this bug to CLOSED. If you have additional information and would like the editor to reconsider, please reopen this bug. If you would like to escalate the issue to the full HTML Working Group, please add the TrackerRequest keyword to this bug, and suggest title and text for the tracker issue; or you may create a tracker issue yourself, if you are able to do so. For more details, see this document:
   http://dev.w3.org/html5/decision-policy/decision-policy.html

Status: Rejected
Change Description: no spec change
Rationale: How else would one send coordinates? Creating a client-side image map with a zillion 1x1 rects is hardly better for accessibility. Sometimes, a coordinate is what is needed.

I agree that it's not a good way of doing navigation, but then nobody's doing that that way now anyway, so it's not a real problem. If you would like more non-normative text in the spec about the matter I'm happy to add some, just let me know what to say.