Re: Working Group Decision on ISSUE-131 caret-location-api

On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 2:06 AM, Richard Schwerdtfeger <schwer@us.ibm.com>wrote:

> - I agree with you that canvas is not the right tool for rich text editing
> but leaving canvas without the ability to enter *any* text accessibly is
> unacceptable. There is no way we can clearly delineate the need to enter
> text in canvas from HTML in all situations without making a horribly ugly
> user experience. Consequently developers will introduce their own text
> editing and frankly most could care less about IMEs. Removing the ability to
> support accessibility will not deter many developers from providing the
> ability to enter text into a drawing object.
>

Likewise, most developers could care less about accessibility --- probably
the same developers who don't care about IMEs --- and they just won't bother
using your proposed APIs.

"Don't use canvas for text editing" is a better, simpler, stronger message
than "here's a bunch of APIs you should use to get text editing half-working
in canvas". Let's try pushing that message and see what happens! There's not
a proliferation of canvas-based text editors today.

(FWIW lack of support for IMEs disenfranchises an order of magnitude more
users than lack of support for accessibility.)

Apple, Microsoft, Google, Mozilla, are you going to implement the
> accessibility support for canvas and that include caret and selection
> tracking capability?
>

As a Mozilla developer, I would not make caret and selection tracking for
canvas a priority until it's clear that discouraging authors from
implementing text editing in canvas has failed.

Rob
-- 
"Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for
they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures
every day to see if what Paul said was true." [Acts 17:11]