Re: Proposal for using web intents for a print intent

The way we think about intent payloads right now, they won't accept JS
functions because they aren't serializable with the structured clone
algorithm. That is, you'd get a JS type error in the Intent object
constructor.

The ability to map a communications channel onto a local JS object, so
that you'd essentially be using a local stub to talk to the printer,
is an interesting idea, and it could end up being a useful tool, but I
think that for intents, we want to keep the contents of the message
serializable, and specs for such object proxying probably ought to be
written in a messaging style. (You need all the RPC mechanics of
deferred results and such, too.)

I suspect that by the time you start specifying these interactions in
enough detail, what you really kind of want is for the remote object
to be able to pop up its own interface to deal with eventualities,
like paper jams or ink outages. But in that case, that's what the
simpler RPC-style intents basically does: you call a print action, and
the printer can use whatever UI it wants to help the user deal with
printing mechanics. (Switching feeds from rear to front, loading
exceptional media, etc.) It may be possible to define some common
error cases, but I'm skeptical that they'll be superior to native UI
the printer controls directly.


On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 3:51 AM, Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org> wrote:
> I spotted an error in my example:
>
> On 25/01/12 11:40, Dave Raggett wrote:
>
>> // now start the activity and redirect
>> // the onSuccess, and onFail functions
>> // to methods on the intent data object
>>
>> window.navigator.startActivity(intent,
>>   function (data) { intent.success(data); },
>>   function (data) { intent.fail(data); }
>> );
>
> Should have been:
>
> window.navigator.startActivity(intent,
>  function (data) { intent.data.success(data); },
>  function (data) { intent.data.fail(data); }
> );
>
> sorry about that.
> --
> Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org> http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett
>

Received on Wednesday, 25 January 2012 17:21:21 UTC