Web Intents W3C Editor's Draft 31 January 2012 - Review comments

Hi,

As a preparation for the Web Intents session in Shenzhen I am reviewing the draft Web Intents specification, http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/web-intents/raw-file/tip/spec/Overview.html. Some initial comments below:


*         Service Registration generally:

I am a bit puzzled on what the specification normatively says on Service registration.

To me a page that registers a Service is logically separated from a page that implements a Service handler. However, the specification seems to see this as the same. I understand that one page could contain the Service registration markup and another page could act as Service handler through the href attribute in the first page but I interpret the specification to be inconsistent on whether a Service handler page needs to contain the registration markup.



The last paragraph of section 3.3 states that the window.intent object is available to Service handler pages under the condition that they are within the same origin as the Service registration page. However, the 6th paragraph of section 3.4 states that user agents MUST NOT place a window.intent object in the scope of pages which do not have registration metadata declaring themselves as intent handlers.



So does an intent handling Service page have to have registration markup for itself or not?



The last paragraph of section 2.1 also  states that intent handling Services can be something else than web pages and the 3rd paragraph of section 4 states that the User Agent may provide additional mechanisms for web intents service registration. All this is inconsistent with a normative statement  that a Service handler MUST contain the registration markup.



*         Section 2.2

It is stated: "Registration is how a Service page informs the User Agent that it is capable of handling Intents."

The wording should also include a statement that another, referenced page, it is capable of handling Intents



*         Section 3.4

- Service as web worker? We can't expect all intent handling Services to have a UI. Have you considered allowing workers? If so, an option is to allow the value "worker" for the disposition attribute in the registration markup.

- Paragraph 3: "The User Agent may provide additional mechanisms for web intents service registration. For example, by external applications, through a separate API, as a result of a permissions bundle in a downloaded web application, or pre-bundled."
I would like to add the example of dynamic local network Services, e.g. UPnP services. This means that the UA's Web Intents framework must be able to manage the Service availability as the connection with them will come and go.

- The last paragraph states that web sites could unregister Service handlers by including the <intent> element but having both Action and Type attributes empty or omitting them. Seems to be a typo in the sentence "That is, a page may unregister itself quietly by removing the tag altogether, or explicitly by keeping the tag present, but empty."  Guess it should be "tags". Furthermore, is it possible to unregister a referenced Service handler page by omitting the Action and Type attributes but keeping the href?

- Paragraph 8: "The User Agent should allow any serializable and/or Transferable object to be passed between client to service and back from service to client. This includes Blobs [BLOB], MessagePorts, etc."
Don't we require a MUST here due to interoperability reasons?

Best regards
  Claes

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Claes Nilsson M.Sc.E.E
Master Engineer, Research
Technology Research - Advanced Application Lab

Sony Mobile Communications
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