[pointerevents] Multi-pen support (#353)

scottlow has just created a new issue for https://github.com/w3c/pointerevents:

== Multi-pen support ==
After digging around in issues for a while, I don't believe this has been asked before, but please feel free to dupe if so. 

Lately, we at Microsoft have been thinking a bit about multi-pen scenarios for devices like Surface Hub. In cases like these, it is sometimes desirable to assign a pen a unique `pointerId` per top-level browsing context that remains static for the duration of the session regardless of whether the pen moves beyond the range of the digitizer. This would enable various scenarios:

- "Remembering" the selected attributes of a specific physical pen within a web-based drawing application, allowing users to switch between physical pens of multiple colors/types/stroke widths/etc. just as they can do on a physical whiteboard
- Allowing multiple people to collaborate at once using "different" pens. Today, I believe the best possible experience we can offer on the web is to let multiple people collaborate using a single pen style

Given various language in the PointerEvents spec such as

> If a touch contact or pen stylus is lifted beyond the range of the digitizer, then it is no longer considered active

and

> A user agent MAY recycle previously retired values for pointerId from previous active pointers, if necessary.

It may be that such an idea would be best implemented as part of some new specification specifically designed for this use case, but I thought I'd float the idea here first to get folks' thoughts.

Please view or discuss this issue at https://github.com/w3c/pointerevents/issues/353 using your GitHub account


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Received on Tuesday, 2 March 2021 04:48:19 UTC