Minutes from Pointer Events WG call 13 October 2021

Dear all,

the minutes from today's meeting are at 
https://www.w3.org/2021/10/13-pointerevents-minutes.html and copied below:

PEWG
13 October 2021

Agenda: 
https://www.w3.org/events/meetings/9718517d-0e08-4377-bb7c-07332948233b/20211013T110000

Attendees
Present
flackr, mustaq, Patrick_H_Lauke, smaug

Chair: Patrick H. Lauke
Scribe:  Patrick H. Lauke, Patrick_H_Lauke


* Move elements of pointerId informative note to normative text 
https://github.com/w3c/pointerevents/pull/411 (modified after last meeting)

* Notes with normative (SHOULD/MUST) statements 
https://github.com/w3c/pointerevents/issues/405 (6 instances addressed, 
1 awaiting PR review above, 3 more that need discussion)


# Move elements of pointerId informative note to normative text 
https://github.com/w3c/pointerevents/pull/411 (modified after last meeting)

Patrick: we discussed this already at the last meeting, have modified it 
since then to hopefully cover the concerns we had.

Patrick: do we think this now still addresses ... what it originally 
tried to address? privacy concerns/fingerprinting, while also allowing 
reuse of pointerId numbers and "fixing" pointerId for specific devices?

Flackr: so we're carving out special case for mouse, but otherwise needs 
to be unique/randomised

Mustaq: mouse is fine because there's always only one

Flackr: but same could be said for stylus.... but i think it's ok

Patrick: i know it's still dense and complex, but i think it's the best 
we can achieve at this point

[all agree]

Flackr: do we need to keep the exception for mouse, allowing it to be a 
special pointerId

Patrick: looking at the second sentence, maybe we should add another 
word "*generic* pointerId" there to avoid scenarios where a UA decides 
to fingerprint a user by assigning them a specific unique pointerId for 
their mouse and then letting sites track that user

[discussion on whether or not "generic" is ... too generic a term]

<mustaq> https://rbyers.github.io/eventTest.html

<mustaq> I used this to check FF and Chrome, they have pointerId 0 and 1 
respectively for mouse.

[checking what WebKit/Safari uses as pointerId for mouse]

[turns out it's 1]

Patrick: not hearing any further objections, made the change and now 
merging.

# Notes with normative (SHOULD/MUST) statements 
https://github.com/w3c/pointerevents/issues/405 (6 instances addressed, 
1 awaiting PR review above, 3 more that need discussion)

mustaq: i looked ahead at the second note in 
https://w3c.github.io/pointerevents/#dfn-active-pointer

mustaq: i think this can be removed now

Patrick: yeah that was my feeling as well, i couldn't actually work out 
anymore what this was *trying* to say

Flackr: and it's wrong now anyway following the changes we just made

Patrick: we all happy to remove this note then?

[all agree]

ACTION: remove second note from active pointer definition as it's 
redundant (and wrong) now

Patrick: next up > note in 
https://w3c.github.io/pointerevents/#firing-events-using-the-pointerevent-interface 
... contains "may" and "should", but not sure how strongly this is 
intended. they're not capitalised, but may give impression of being MAY 
and SHOULD in normative sense? more fundamentally, are we ok with not 
normatively defining if boundary events are fired or not?

Patrick: at a high level...are we "happy" having this vague and 
non-normative? or should it be normative?

Smaug: it's ... fine

mustaq: i think it should be normative

<mustaq> https://www.w3.org/TR/uievents/#events-mouseevent-event-order

mustaq: UI Events spec handwaves boundary events as well ... spec by 
example, so we can't overreach by defining things HERE

<mustaq> This "defines" boundary event firing through examples!

Flackr: agree shouldn't define thing in two places

mustaq: but maybe we can specify it for target/pointer capture...

[group agrees that it would end up being complex to define only for 
capture, and for other events go back to handwaving]

mustaq: i think one of the problems in this note is the "should"

Patrick: agree, i was looking at that as well. changing this "should" to 
"may" would then make everything "may" (lowercase)

mustaq: difference is that UI Events is talking about mouse events, but 
here we do it for pointer, and specifically about capture, so maybe we 
should be more specific

Flackr: don't want to talk about boundary events specifically, but maybe 
we need to say that using target capture should be treated as if the 
pointer moved to the element

Patrick: Rob would you mind taking a stab at this?

Flackr: sure

ACTION: Rob to draft a PR for the note regarding pointer capture target 
override

Patrick: last one from this batch: > first note in 
https://w3c.github.io/pointerevents/#compatibility-mapping-with-mouse-events 
is full of "may" and "should" - is it clear enough these are not used in 
the MAY and SHOULD sense?

[discussion on whether the second para about preventDefault is needed? 
or should be normative]

Patrick: I think what we do want to make normative is the first 
sentence, saying that click/contextmenu are NOT considered compat mouse 
events. then leave the "In user agents that support..." as part of the note

Flackr: agree. also, the fact that in the default actions listed for 
pointerdown etc it's very vaguely talking about canceling "some" mouse 
compat events is a bit too vague

Patrick: agree, we should just say that canceling prevents compat mouse 
events, not "some"

ACTION: Patrick to draft a PR that makes sentence about 
click/contextmenu NOT being compat events normative, make the default 
action explanations about canceling and how that affects compat mouse 
events MORE specific by remove the vagueness on which ones are prevented

Patrick: thank you all, catch you again in 2 weeks' time

actually, tell a lie ... I just realised i'm on vacation then, so 4 
weeks' time

-- 
Patrick H. Lauke

https://www.splintered.co.uk/ | https://github.com/patrickhlauke
https://flickr.com/photos/redux/ | https://www.deviantart.com/redux
twitter: @patrick_h_lauke | skype: patrick_h_lauke

Received on Wednesday, 13 October 2021 16:10:19 UTC