Re: on execCommand() and script-triggered copy/cut/paste

On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 8:51 AM, Johannes Wilm <johannes@fiduswriter.org>
wrote:

>
>
> On Tue, Aug 4, 2015 at 11:06 PM, Hallvord Reiar Michaelsen Steen <
> hsteen@mozilla.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> I think "deprecated" is the right word for the goal you're describing,
>> I'm just saying the goal itself is unrealistic and therefore pointless.
>>
>> If I may quote Aryeh Gregor himself (I hope he doesn't mind..)
>> "it's true execCommand etc. will probably never be removable"  - from
>> https://github.com/w3c/clipboard-apis/issues/16#issuecomment-127568051
>>
>
> That sounds like a defeatist attitude. In that case I think the word
> "deprecated" is correct. Not everything that is marked as "deprecated"
> disappears quite as fast as those deprecating it had hoped for. Sometimes
> things are even "un-deprecated". But to give up before one even begins
> doesn't sound like a healthy attitude.
>

Maybe not :) It's simply our experience with spec'ing stuff for the web that

* Making a "clean break" with the past to do things "the right way" has
historically not worked (see efforts standardising XHTML and XHTML2 instead
of HTML etc)
* Removing features from the web platform is very, very hard
* Complexity usually exists for a reason. I'm not saying simplifying
editing is impossible, nor that a "simplified editing element" like
cE=intents is useless - but given that it's very, very hard to make a fully
fledged editor, you need a lot of "primitives" and a lot of logic handling
corner cases will simply be cloned in JS although the UA already has it
built-in.

I said "our" experience because I think many browser developers and spec
editors will agree with all three points.

I suggest you develop your new things and see if browser developers
implement them while not claiming ownership over or power to "deprecate"
those old things. Now and then, a developer will want to fix something in
contentEditable=true land, and simply having Aryeh's spec around will
inform that work and improve compatibility and quality - over time, even
though noone might have the manpower to do massive cE rewrite efforts right
now.

As for the clipboard stuff, I hear what you're saying about the benefits of
a new API so I'm also asking for feedback on possibly doing that.
-Hallvord