Re-chartering

On Wed, 16 Feb 2011 21:43:22 +0100, Anderson Quach <aquach@microsoft.com>  
wrote:

> iii. On 2/15/2011 we'll expand the meeting to include a 1hr discussion  
> on re-chartering to include APIs to help web-apps conserve battery and  
> promote efficient painting. Followed by 10-11 to continue discussions on  
> Navigation Timing and moving towards CR.

I agree on allowing web-apps to be smart about their behaviour is a  
worthwhile goal. A couple of comments.

The visibility API and requestAnimationFrame seem to enable the browser to  
do the same thing, but the latter seems to have fewer privacy concerns and  
issues than the former. Being able to tell the user's browser habits is a  
privacy issue (particularily if cross-domain iframes can tell the status  
of the parent), and knowing when a tab is in the background can help with  
e.g. tabnapping. The visibility API might also be somewhat complex for  
non-active, (partly) visible windows. Can we make do with one of these, or  
do they enable different use cases?

There is also the Devices API group[1], which works on APIs for getting  
for instance the CPU utilization and battery power[2]. They also have  
existing discussions and policies on privacy issues related to giving such  
access. I am being told they are rechartering, and would love some  
involvement from more browser makers. If we would like explicit APIs for  
these things, we should consider submitting a wishlist to the group,  
including any new APIs we might want, and getting that implemented along  
with other similar APIs. (While if all we want is requestAnimationFrame,  
then we'd be better off doing it ourselves.)

[1] http://www.w3.org/2009/dap/
[2] http://dev.w3.org/2009/dap/system-info/

-- 
Sigbjørn Vik
Quality Assurance
Opera Software

Received on Friday, 18 February 2011 15:06:42 UTC