HTML 4.01 in Netscape and Explorer: Forms

Forms
Listen to your users

The form element

Both browsers support the form element except for the accept and accept-charset attributes, which are ignored.

The input element

All the types of input element are supported by both browsers to some extent. Neither browser supports the alt and usemap attributes to the image type, or the accept attribute to the file type. Netscape also fails to recognize the readonly and disabled attributes to text fields. Explorer additionally supports the dynsrc and lowsrc attributes to the image type as we described in the section about the img element

The button element

The button element is supported as described in the specification only by Explorer. Netscape ignores the element and renders its content instead.

The select, optgroup and option elements

The select element is supported by both Explorer and Netscape as stated by the specification. The option element is also supported with the exception of the label attribute, which is ignored by both browsers. Netscape doesn't recognize the disabled attribute to either element. The optgroup element is unsupported by both browsers.

The textarea element

Both browsers support the textarea element, except for Netscape which does not recognize the disabled and readonly attributes. Explorer also recognizes an align attribute to the element that acts exactly as the align attribute to the img element acts, as described in the section on embedded objects.

Additionally, the two browsers support a wrap attribute, which has different syntax for each browser. Netscape supports values of off, hard and soft, while Explorer supports values of off, physical and virtual. wrap=off. This has the same meaning in both browsers and means that there is no word-wrapping in the element. wrap=hard and wrap=physical are equivalent, and indicate that the text should be word-wrapped and that the linebreaks used to wrap it should be submitted along with the rest of its contents. wrap=soft or wrap=virtual are also mutually equivalent and indicate that the text should be wrapped, but that the inserted linebreaks should not be sent along as part of the value of the control.

The isindex element

Both browsers support the isindex element as stated in the specification.

The label element

The label element is supported only by Explorer; Netscape ignores it. There is no extra functionality for labels in Explorer.

The legend and fieldset elements

Only Explorer recognizes the legend and fieldset elements. Explorer renders a fieldset as a rectangular box around its contents, and supports an align attribute that accepts values of left (the default), right and center that left-align, right-align or center the element respectively. The align attribute to the legend element has the same syntax as that of the caption element.

Tabbing navigation and access keys

Only Explorer supports the tabindex and accesskey attributes. When the TAB key is pressed in Explorer, it cycles through the indexed elements as stated in the specification; Shift-TAB cycles in reverse. To focus on an element with an accesskey attribute, the user must press Alt-key, where key is the value of the accesskey attribute. Netscape ignores both attributes on all elements.