Re: Why is the `touch-action` CSS property needed?

Hi James,
The main motivation for a CSS property is for performance on browsers that
use a separate thread to implement scrolling.  I agree the spec doesn't
make this very explicit, but it does mention it, eg:

"An additional key goal is to enable multi-threaded user agents to handle
default touch actions, such as scrolling, without blocking on script
execution."
"Touch manipulations are intentionally not a default action of pointer
events. Removing this dependency on the cancellation of events facilitates
performance optimizations by the user agent."

This is a really big problem in touch browsers today.  For scrolling to
feel really good (which we know increases user engagement) we must be able
to do it at a smooth 60fps, but it can be very hard to ensure parsing /
javascript / layout / painting etc. never takes >16ms - especially on
mobile devices.  To address this we must be able to scroll without blocking
on the main thread, but that's not possible if we must wait to dispatch the
pointer event to the DOM and see if it is cancelled.

I discuss this problem in more detail here:
https://plus.sandbox.google.com/115788095648461403871/posts/cmzrtyBYPQc
https://docs.google.com/a/chromium.org/document/d/12-HPlSIF7-ISY8TQHtuQ3IqDi-isZVI0Yzv5zwl90VU/edit#heading=h.qsp769rzbdvl
https://developers.google.com/events/io/sessions/361772634

Rick


On Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 1:38 PM, James Greene <james.m.greene@gmail.com>wrote:

> Perhaps I've overlooked something but I haven't found anything in the
> Pointer Events spec nor mailing list archives that explains why the
> `touch-action` CSS property is needed.
>
> From the outside perspective of someone who is *relatively* new to
> Pointer Events, it seems to me that the JS/DOM should always receive
> Pointer events and that any user agents' special touch actions should be
> triggered as the default actions for a given Pointer event.  This would
> mean that you could prevent the user agents' special touch actions simply
> by calling `e.preventDefault();` from the JS side.
>
> However, what I've read so far about this `touch-action` CSS property
> would suggest that the user agents may trigger their special touch actions
> *BEFORE *the Pointer event is passed to JS/DOM.
>
> I'm also confused why we would want to *require* a CSS property in order
> to *enable* a DOM event (though I do understand the nicety of using CSS
> properties to *disable* DOM events, e.g. "user-select:none").
>
> Could someone please enlighten me?  Thank you in advance!
>
> Sincerely,
>     James M. Greene
>     http://jamesgreene.net/
>
>