Question

I allow my users to import local and remote files, but how can I use a single input to handle both cases ?

Like Stackoverflow, I can do it using tabs :

Or use radio buttons like :

<style>
    .displayNone {
        display:none;
    }
</style>

<form action="test.php">
    File type:
    <input id="radio-url" name="type" type="radio" checked value="url" /> URL
    <input id="radio-file" name="type" type="radio" value="file" /> File
    <div id="url">
        <input name="url" type="text" />
    </div>
    <div id="file" class="displayNone">
        <input name="file" type="file" />
    </div>
    <input type="submit" value="Send" />
</form>

<script type="text/javascript">
        $('#radio-url').click(function() {
            $('#url').removeClass('displayNone');
            $('#file').addClass('displayNone');
        });
        $('#radio-file').click(function() {
            $('#file').removeClass('displayNone');
            $('#url').addClass('displayNone');
        });
</script>

Gives a switchable :

But how can I create such a field :

Note for the whole question that the way of handling file on the remote host isn’t important.

Answer 1

I found a working way using CSS :

<style>
    .container {
        position: relative;
    }
    .url {
        position: absolute;
        top:0;
        left:0;
        z-index:2;
    }
</style>

<form action="test.php">
    File or URL :
    <div class="container">
        <input name="file" type="file" />
        <input class="url" name="url" type="text" />
    </div>
    <input type="submit" value="Send" />
</form>

Gives an editable input type="text" above the input type="file" :

But I think this will be tricky because browsers layout and behaviour is different for the input type="file".