Html: Proposal: permit `Tel` control group for `tel-national` and other telephone-related autofill fields

[adampage]

In WHATWG’s Living Standard, this table pairing autofill fields with permitted control groups, shows that tel-national is restricted to Text controls, whereas the tel autofill field permits Tel controls.

It seems odd to exclude type="tel" for the more granular set of telephone-related autofill fields. In fact, the second example offered in 4.10.1.7 (non-normative) does show type="tel" and autocomplete="tel-national" being used together.

I propose changing the control group for the following autofill fields from Text to the more permissive Tel:

• tel-national
• tel-country-code
• tel-area-code
• tel-local
• tel-local-prefix
• tel-local-suffix
• tel-extension

Thanks for your consideration.

[mnoorenberghe]

IIUC <input type=tel> is intended for complete telephone numbers ("The input element represents a control for editing a telephone number given in the element's value.") whereas the ones you've listed are incomplete (e.g. "Country code component of the telephone number"). I don't see the value in supporting the use of type=tel for partial phone numbers and it would muddy the purpose of that type, potentially reducing the ability for user agents to provide appropriate autofill suggestion for type=tel when @autocomplete is omitted. Please don't use type=tel for incomplete phone number fields.

[jkshapiro]

The major value is for mobile user agents, which (assuming the inputmode attribute is absent) bring up a different keyboard depending on the type of an input field. This is illustrated in the MDN web docs.

Even if a user is entering only part of a telephone number, the telephone-number keyboard would be appropriate.

[annevk]

In that case you should use the inputmode attribute though.

[mnoorenberghe]

Right, inputmode="tel" is the correct way to get a keyboard for telephone numbers when type="tel" isn't appropriate (e.g. because it's a partial telephone number).