Re: Microsoft has now joined the HTML Working Group

Chris Wilson wrote:
> [chair hat off...maybe I should leave it off for a bit]
> That's partly true, but partly app authors may want to
> provide some more programmatic change to the page - e.g.,
> informing controls (whether ActiveX, script-behind,
> whatever) that they're about to print, in case the
> control needs to make changes.

   Interesting, but why wouldn't the underlying plug-in architecture
handle the rendering of plug-ins in different rendering contexts, such
as printing? Why have an event specifically for a single media if this
issue might exist for other medias? Can you give a use case where a
plug-in needs to be informed of printing via a scripted event in HTML?

> For events like that, it
> would seem to be better than forcing everyone to do
> everything using css media (which, btw, IE supports as well;
> this isn't saying that support is not good).

   With the potential for abuse (crazy DRM schemes and malicious
alteration of the document to prevent printing of content), bugs (the
page doesn't have the correct print presentation or the changes to the
document aren't undone after printing) and circumvention (turning of
Javascript temporarily or using a script to remove the attributes), why
isn't having a separate printable version of a document not a better
method of addressing this issue? Couldn't you use link to point a <link>
to an alternative print version of the document and have the user agent
prompt to use this version when the user hits the browser print button?

| <link rel="alternate printable"  href="printable.html"
| title="Printable version of this document.">

   Also, as an alternative, why can't a "print" button in the HTML
trigger a script that copies the document object, alters the copy,
prints it then disposes of it without ever touching the original
document? (I've heard that there may be memory issues with this, but
there's no obvious reason to restrict this for smaller documents.)

Received on Sunday, 8 April 2007 12:45:54 UTC