- From: Philip Jägenstedt <philipj@opera.com>
- Date: Tue, 29 Dec 2009 08:52:04 +0100
- To: "Edward O'Connor" <hober0@gmail.com>, "Jeremy Keith" <jeremy@adactio.com>
- Cc: HTMLwg <public-html@w3.org>
On Tue, 29 Dec 2009 00:44:50 +0100, Edward O'Connor <hober0@gmail.com> wrote: >> Is the absence of the autobuffer attribute an explicit request not to >> pre-buffer? > > I'd rather it not be. > > I think it's important for the author to be able to say "hi browser, > please do whatever is most appropriate given your platform / network > connection / memory / etc., insofar as buffering is concerned." In fact, > I suspect this to be the most common authoring case. Most authors would > prefer it if, say, cell phone browsers defaulted to no-autobuffering, > whereas they might prefer desktop browsers to behave differently. Given > that, I'd prefer the default/lazy authoring behavior (not specifying the > attribute at all) to have this meaning. > > Essentially, we have three things we'd like authors to be able to convey > to the browser: > > 1. Do whatever the browser thinks best. > > 2. Please autobuffer. > > 3. Please *don't* autobuffer. > > And there are a few things we'd like to be able to say about whatever > design we settle on: > > A. (1) above should be the default condition, so its syntax should be > what most authors will do anyway (not provide attributes at all). > > B. Any new boolean attributes should behave like the other boolean > attributes already present in HTML (presence means t and absense > means nil). > > C. If at all possible, we should be able to use different values for > the same attribute for (2) and (3). (Minting separate attributes > for (2) and (3) means allowing authors to write nonsensical markup, > and having to spec what HTML5 processors should do when they're > both present. What does <video buffer nobuffer> mean?) > > There's a lot of tension between (B) and (C), so much so that I think > autobuffer="" should probably become an enumerated attribute[1] instead > of a boolean attribute. Something like the following: > > 1. Do whatever the browser thinks best. [no autobuffer attribute] > > 2. Please autobuffer. [autobuffer="on"] > > 3. Please *don't* autobuffer. [autobuffer="off"] > > > Ted > > 1. > http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/common-microsyntaxes.html#keywords-and-enumerated-attributes > I do not support making this distinction, because as an implementor I cannot act any differently in case 1 and 3. Any browser that has gone to the effort of being conservative with network resources will want that behavior even if autobuffer="off" is given. Unless there is some browser vendor who can see themselves acting differently in case 1 and 3, this just adds a bit of complexity and the illusion of control on part of the author where there is in fact none. -- Philip Jägenstedt Core Developer Opera Software
Received on Tuesday, 29 December 2009 07:52:49 UTC