Re: Request to re-open issue 131

On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 10:31 AM, Sam Ruby <rubys@intertwingly.net> wrote:

>> At Mozilla there are certainly voices for avoiding any kind of
>> encouragement of canvas-for-text-app usage.
>
> It would be helpful if those voices were to participate here, on
> public-html.

I am one of those voices.

I am personally not at all interested in implementing APIs that are
there solely for building text editors in canvas. I simply don't think
that people can build good accessible text editors in canvas. Sure, we
can slap a few APIs on there to improve certain aspects of it, but I
don't believe anyone has ever proposed an API which will allow a
*good* text editor to be written.

I feel like people freaked out when they saw the demo-ware bespin
using a canvas-based editor. However since then the bespin (now cloud
writer) developers realized that creating a canvas-based editor was
simply too much work and so they switched away from using canvas. The
result was a more accessible user experience.

In other words, the set of accessibility APIs that we have *now*
deployed in canvas (i.e. basically none) lead the developers to create
a more accessible editing experience than if they would have used the
APIs suggested so far.

In short, so far I'm not at all convinced that trying come up with
APIs that are solely for enabling text editors in canvas is worth our
or implementors time.

This doesn't say anything about providing other accessibility-related
APIs for canvas though of course. For things like text selection and
hit testing I've seen more evidence both that we can create reasonable
experiences using various proposed APIs, as well as more of a need due
to how people use canvas on the web today.

/ Jonas

Received on Thursday, 15 December 2011 02:18:41 UTC