Changes to DOM3 Events Key Identifiers

Hi, Folks-

(BCC to potentially affected groups: w3c-html-cg, public-webapps, 
public-i18n-core, wai-xtech, www-svg, public-forms, public-xhtml2, 
public-html@w3.org, www-voice... please forward on to any relevant 
groups or individuals I may have missed, especially outside W3C.)

As editor of the DOM3 Events specification, I made what some may 
consider to be drastic changes in the most recent drafts:
  * I changed the syntax of the key identifier strings from "U+xxxx" (a 
plain string representing the Unicode code point) to "\uxxxx" (an 
escaped UTF-16 character string), based on content author and 
implementer feedback.
  * I renamed the "key identifier(s)" feature to "key value(s)".

I've mentioned these ideas before in DOM3 Events telcons, and finally 
decided to do it, after first consulting with the I18n WG, who generally 
approved of the scheme (though not without some comments about details 
that will need to be addressed and resolved).

The new string format should be easier to deal with for developers, and 
the new name reflects some confusion I've encountered when explaining 
what "key identifiers" are... the work "identifier" seems to evoke the 
concept of a unique identifier for a key, when in fact what the feature 
does is provides the most appropriate value given the state of keyboard 
modifiers and modes.  I have tried also to clarify this in the prose of 
the spec.

We are aware that there may already be implementations and 
specifications that rely on the previous string format and name (as well 
as links), back from when this was a W3C Note, and we do not make this 
decision lightly, but we do believe this is the right decision for a 
stable and internationalized keyboard interface going forward.  For 
those implementations and specifications that need the previous 
functionality and name, you may be able to reference the SVG Tiny 1.2 
specification [2] instead, which does include the old Key Identifiers 
feature more or less intact from the previous definition, and is a 
stable W3C Recommendation.

You can review the changes in the most recent Editor's Draft [1].  The 
WebApps WG welcomes your feedback to the www-dom@w3.org list.  This 
specification is still a work in progress, though we do hope to go to 
Last Call soon, so we are open to suggestions. (Note that the spec is 
mostly feature-complete, so new event types and other changes may have 
to wait for the next version, but send them on anyway.)

[1] 
http://dev.w3.org/2006/webapi/DOM-Level-3-Events/html/DOM3-Events.html#keyset
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/SVGTiny12/svgudom.html#KeyIdentifiersSet


Regards-
-Doug Schepers, on behalf of the WebApps WG
Editor, DOM Level 3 Events
W3C Team Contact, SVG and WebApps WGs

Received on Friday, 30 October 2009 07:32:58 UTC