RE: focus/blur events

On Wed, 29 Mar 2006, Mark Birbeck wrote:
> 
> On the one hand, the DOMFocusIn and Out events are in the DOM 2 Events spec,
> and have been for nearly six years.

Have they? Look at the spec. This is the sum total of the spec for 
DOMFocusIn:

| DOMFocusIn
|     The DOMFocusIn event occurs when an EventTarget receives focus, for 
|     instance via a pointing device being moved onto an element or by 
|     tabbing navigation to the element. Unlike the HTML event focus, 
|     DOMFocusIn can be applied to any focusable EventTarget, not just 
|     FORM controls.
|
|        * Bubbles: Yes
|        * Cancelable: No
|        * Context Info: None

What does it normatively define? Nothing other than the name, and it 
doesn't even require support for that. It doesn't require any UA to fire 
the event. This definition is effectively worthless.

So what does it mean for DOMFocusIn to be "in" the DOM2 Events spec?

That's what I'm asking.


> But do you mean that really they should be in a separate spec? That DOM 
> 3 Events should focus on the architecture, whilst the actual naming and 
> behaviour of the events themselves should be elsewhere? If so, I for one 
> would certainly agree with that, especially since many events will be 
> little 'clusters' based around some defined functionality. A much 
> smaller, leaner spec purely concentrating on control navigation could 
> describe these events.

Exactly. If a spec wants to use an event, it should define the event -- 
which means defining normative testable conformance criteria stating when 
the event must be fired, on what it must be fired, what the default 
actions are, what event interface the object should use, what the 
attributes should be initialised to, and so forth.

DOM2 Events doesn't do any of that.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Thursday, 30 March 2006 01:16:09 UTC