File Input accept Attribute
The HTML5 revolution provided us several simple but important attributes like download, autofocus, required, novalidate, and placeholder. There's another one you may want to know about: accept. The accept attribute is useful for input[type=file] elements. Let's have a look at it!
The HTML
I'll use Twitter's upload button to illustrate a good usage of the accept attribute:
<input type="file" name="media_empty" accept="image/gif,image/jpeg,image/jpg,image/png,">
The accept attribute gets a comma-separated list of mime types for files desired file types. In this case, Twitter is allowing the user to upload common image formats.
![CSS 3D Folding Animation]()
Google Plus provides loads of inspiration for front-end developers, especially when it comes to the CSS and JavaScript wonders they create. Last year I duplicated their incredible PhotoStack effect with both MooTools and pure CSS; this time I'm going to duplicate...
![Create a Sheen Logo Effect with CSS]()
I was inspired when I first saw Addy Osmani's original ShineTime blog post. The hover sheen effect is simple but awesome. When I started my blog redesign, I really wanted to use a sheen effect with my logo. Using two HTML elements and...
![Skype-Style Buttons Using MooTools]()
A few weeks back, jQuery expert Janko Jovanovic dropped a sweet tutorial showing you how to create a Skype-like button using jQuery. I was impressed by Janko's article so I decided to port the effect to MooTools.
The XHTML
This is the exact code provided by...
![Detect Vendor Prefix with JavaScript]()
Regardless of our position on vendor prefixes, we have to live with them and occasionally use them to make things work. These prefixes can be used in two formats: the CSS format (-moz-, as in -moz-element) and the JS format (navigator.mozApps). The awesome X-Tag project has...
The biggest problem about using this code is that the user can change it easily with firebug or others debugs.
It’s not for validation, it’s for assisting the user to select the right file type (since the file selection will only show files of that type).
You should never use this for validation since some browsers do not support it.
Validation should be done on your backend. This kind of selection only helps users what we really need from them.
Be careful with this.
The main issue is that some mobile browsers started to prevent the user from selecting any (!) file at all if the accept property was declared (which is just plain terrible user agent behaviour).
Thus if you want to support these browsers, you have to detect them and remove the accept property.
For details see http://caniuse.com/#feat=input-file-accept