Re: Browser search API

Hi,

I am not sure that telling the webpage what the user is currently trying
to search is a great idea. However, if a webpage wants its own "find in
page" UI I guess a simple solution would be to do something similar to
the Forms Validation UI: a 'findinpage' event could be fired on the
document when the user initiates a find in page and the page would be
able to call .preventDefault() on the event in order to show its own UI.

It could look like:
window.document.addEventListener('findinpage', function(e) {
  e.preventDefault();
  var find = createFindInPageUI();
  find.focus();
});

--
Mounir

On Sat, Nov 30, 2013, at 15:40, Mitar wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> Is there already any proposal for browser search API for searching
> over displayed web pages? So that a webapp could know when user is
> searching with a browser interface. I am imagining something where
> browser would send an event with search string content whenever user
> would modify search pattern. Because searching over the page is part
> of the trusted UI, webapp should not have a way to interfere or set
> search string content, but webapp should still know when searching is
> happening.
> 
> This would be really useful for assuring search works as expected for
> webapps which work with rich and special content. For example, Google
> Docs would not have to hijack search shortcut to provide their own
> search. And it would still work when user starts searching by enabling
> it through browser menu entry and not through keyboard shortcut.
> 
> Another example is Mozilla pdf.js, a canvas based PDF rendering
> library for the web. Because all content is rendered as canvas,
> searching is a really unsatisfying experience. Their current approach
> is same as Google Docs, they hijack search keyboard shortcut to
> display their own search. And again, this makes users be confused if
> they start searching through browser menu.
> 
> Not to mention that users using mobile devices probably never start
> searching with keyboard shortcut.
> 
> So, is there a plan to standardize something like that? A simple event
> which would be send every time user change string he or she is
> searching for, or an empty string if search was cleared or closed.
> Where should I turn to to propose such a standard?
> 
> 
> Mitar
> 
> -- 
> http://mitar.tnode.com/
> https://twitter.com/mitar_m
> 
>

Received on Monday, 2 December 2013 11:42:59 UTC