[Bug 23020] New: The use of "window" to mean "top level browsing context" is confusing.

https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=23020

            Bug ID: 23020
           Summary: The use of "window" to mean "top level browsing
                    context" is confusing.
    Classification: Unclassified
           Product: Browser Test/Tools WG
           Version: unspecified
          Hardware: PC
                OS: Linux
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P2
         Component: WebDriver
          Assignee: public-browser-tools-testing@w3.org
          Reporter: james@hoppipolla.co.uk
        QA Contact: public-browser-tools-testing@w3.org
                CC: mike@w3.org

It seems that people (i.e. implementors) find the use of "window" to mean "top
level browsing context" confusing. I think this is because there are already
two alternate meanings of the term: "window" the name of the javascript global
object, of which there is one per browsing context (top-level or not) and
"window" the operating system feature, which may be associated with zero or
more top level browsing contexts. In particular an easy mistake to make is to
assume that getWindowHandles and similar methods should return one entry per OS
window, rather than one per tab.

Given this confusion, I think it would be better to either write out "top level
browsing context" explicitly, or invent some new term to mean that. This is
just for the text, I presume it isn't reasonable to change the API for
compatibility reasons.

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Received on Tuesday, 20 August 2013 15:18:22 UTC