[thelist] Use of <select> elements for navigation

David Dorward evolt at david.us-lot.org
Tue Jun 24 09:49:56 CDT 2003


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

> 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". If the links would
detract from the content, then it might be wise to separate them out
on to different pages.

> I know it is evil to break them for non-JavaScript browsers by making them
> auto submit via a script,

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

-- 
David Dorward                                     http://david.us-lot.org/
         Redesign in progress: http://stone.thecoreworlds.net/
  Microsoft announces IE is dead (so upgrade):
http://minutillo.com/steve/weblog/2003/5/30/microsoft-announces-ie-is-dead


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