[thelist] Use of <select> elements for navigation

[Koutoulas, Pete]

On Tuesday, June 24, 2003 10:50 AM, David Dorward wrote:

> On Tue, Jun 24, 2003 at 10:35:44 -0400, Koutoulas, Pete wrote:
>> I've always heard that it is bad practice to use form elements
>> (select for example) for purposes other than their intended use. Do
>> you folks subscribe to this philosophy?
> 
> Speaking for myself, No. Other people agree:
> http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/forms/navmenu.html#alt

You just contradicted yourself. You say "no and others agree" but the page
you reference says "yes." Which is it?
 
>> I know the select has been abused much for navigation when other
>> methods would work better, but what about a situation (currently
>> faced by yours truly) where you need to provide links to (and group)
>> dozens of documents without creating a huge page?
> 
> Real links, or select elements - The file size will be similar no
> matter which you use. Space taken on screen shouldn't be an issue
> because users have things called "scrollbars". 

Obviously I was talking about screen size, not file size. Yes I am aware of
things called "scrollbars." Did it ever occur to you that I might want to
present a page that minimizes scrolling?

> Always have a submit button. Always have a server side process to
> handle the form. Progressive Enhancement & Graceful Degradation.

Not much help but thanks for answering anyway.

    [ pete ]

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