[thelist] Netscape 6.1, radiobuttons, and DTD

[Marc Seyon]

Message from .jeff (2/28/2002 12:15 PM)

>fwiw, ie3 will do the same.  interestingly enough, it's actually what's
>*supposed* to happen.
>
>http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/interact/forms.html#radio
>
>so, it seems you should be specifying which one is selected by default or
>let the user agent handle it and expect to get inconsistent behavior.

Not entirely certain I agree with this, but I was reading somewhere that
it's good practice when using radio buttons to always have a 'none of the
above' or 'none selected' type option. Why? Because unlike checkboxes, once
you select one of a group of radio buttons, you cannot deselect it - you
can change your choice, but you can't revert to 'no response'.

So as a bit of a public service to your users, if you're offering groups of
radio buttons, consider also having a 'no response' choice, which you can
then select as being CHECKED.

regards.
-marc