Re: [DOM3 Events/DOM4] re-dispatching trusted events with initEvent

On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 3:06 PM, Tobie Langel <tobie@fb.com> wrote:

> Are you asking about the purpose of exposing the property or the purpose
> of trusted events?
>

I'm asking about the property.  The flag underneath it exists only to
implement the property.

The latter's obvious: prevent visited content from triggering actions the
> UA wants to allow only after a user action. The former I'm not sure.
>

This is a common misconception of how events work.  If you're a browser,
default events do not--except for one or two web-compat exceptions--look
like this:

browse_button.addEventListener("click", function(e) { if(e.isTrusted)
openFilePicker(); }, false);
browse_button.dispatchEvent(clickEvent);

Rather, they look like this:

if(browse_button.dispatchEvent(clickEvent))
    openFilePicker();

The "default action"--openFilePicker()--is not part of the event dispatch
process; it's part of the caller of the dispatch.  You don't need a flag to
tell you that you dispatched the event.  (DOM3's language about "default
actions" confuses this; I suggest reading DOM4's event section to get a
good picture of how this actually works.)

(The main exception is the "click" event, which does activate the element
when a synthetic event is dispatched.  This is a historical mistake, not
the norm.  I don't believe that needs this flag, either, but I'll hold off
explaining why unless somebody asks.)

-- 
Glenn Maynard