UI chrome behavior in language spec?

Maciej:
> In a personal capacity: I think it's inappropriate for the spec to
> mandate UI outside the content area. Behavior of the browser chrome is
> not an interoperability requirement, and has traditionally been the
> province of the browser developers themselves, to experiment and
> compete. If there is a browser UI feature you really truly want, then
> the right way to pursue that would be to submit feature requests to your
> favorite browsers.

Doug:
> Why?  Surely for interoperability, it's easier to come to a single group 
> of people dedicated to that very purpose, than to force authors and 
> users to file multiple feature requests with multiple browsers.  I've 
> heard quite a few people say recently that they don't have time to 
> participate in the standards/interop process, and that they feel 
> underrepresented.  I am trying to represent their interests here.

(arguments left out --)

Is it possible to satisfy both? To have a "HTML" spec which leaves
"UI outside the content area" unspecified, and another spec,
which has a more limited scope, "COMMON BROWSER UI SPEC"
which *does* specify UI outside the content area?

Then new browsers that want to innovate in areas behavior,
bookmarks, etc. could safely remain compliant with the
"HTML" spec, and yet innovate around browser UI -- it would
be a product choice.

I think doing this in a coordinated way (e.g., combining the
'typical browser UI behavior' in a separate spec or at least
combining features together in some systematic way) is 
preferable to just leaving these things as independent
"SHOULD" requirements on each UI, because different features 
are often interdependent.

And the UI chrome browser behavior is irrelevant to the 
applications of HTML that aren't specifically in "browsers".

Larry
--
http://larry.masinter

Received on Sunday, 23 August 2009 23:29:36 UTC