form field sizing

On Feb 11, 12:41*pm, Jeff <jeff (AT) spam_me_not (DOT) com> wrote:

Adrienne Boswell wrote:
Gazing into my crystal ball I observed Jeff <jeff (AT) spam_me_not (DOT) com
writing innews:13quil41ko7r5ca (AT) corp (DOT) supernews.com:

Aesthetics my boy. Edges should line up. Set a width for you form,
either in % or pixels and the right edges should align. Just as the
left do.
That's poor usability, since the lengths of fields don't act as clues
any more.
* *Well, I don't understand how you could come the end of a textarea
and
not know you were there.

Textareas don't have an end. *That's why there have been many client
side scripts written to a) alert the user how many characters have been
entered, b) stop the user from inputting anymore characters.

* *Ah, I didn't know that's what we were talking about.



Input on the other hand, is different. *If the author has put in
maxlength="20" and size="50" (or styled it such), the user has no way of
knowing the maximum length _before_ they start typing, the field just
will not take anymore characters, and
a) the user is confused
b) the user has not noticed and has put in the wrong information.

If I make a input element have maxlength, I set the size to be the same.

I'm a little confused about the real value of a maxlength. I suppose it
is to keep customers from entering beyond the database field size limit,
but if you are not indexing on a field there's little reason not to make
the field much larger. As far as textarea limits why set a limit at all,
it's rare to index that at all so *there's little reason there not to
put it into something like a mysql TEXT.

* *Perhaps I'm missing something here.

* *Now, who was talking about setting font-sizes on form fields, * I
can't find the post now and that sounds interesting.

If there is a textarea involved, say 50 cols, I usually set input
element size to 50 also, so their widths are _about_ the same. *But, in
that situation, if a field's length is 40 characters, then I still set
the input element's size to 40 and maxlength to 40.

* *Why the max length? I don't remember the last time I set that, so
maybe I'm missing a design or useability consideration.

* *Jeff




Nah.

I would not use that eather.
Unless you want to restrict what a user can place in the field (such
as only allowing them to place number), in a field where you want
them to place an amount.
--
Regards Chad. http://freewebdesignonline.org

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed Chaddy2222 <spamlovermailbox-
sicurity (AT) yahoo (DOT) com.au> writing in news:e37d1838-6e8a-49e9-be85-
8a822b5a1a60 (AT) u10g2000prn (DOT) googlegroups.com:

ÿ ÿWhy the max length? I don't remember the last time I set that, so
maybe I'm missing a design or useability consideration.

Maxlength for input elements, sometimes. For example, a database field
is 20 characters. You don't want the user to put in 21 characters, so
you set it to 20. That way, you know that you are going to get 20
characters server side. Of course, you are going to check server side
anyway - but it's a client side method that does not rely on client side
script.

Nah.
I would not use that eather.
Unless you want to restrict what a user can place in the field (such
as only allowing them to place number), in a field where you want
them to place an amount.

Contents of a field either has to be checked server side, or with client
side script. Maxlength does not affect that at all.


--
Adrienne Boswell at Home
Arbpen Web Site Design Services
http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
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