Re: [Selection] Support of Multiple Selection (was: Should selection.getRangeAt return a clone or a reference?)

On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 10:12 PM, Olivier Forget <teleclimber@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'd be interested in hearing more about what didn't work with that API by both devs who tried to make use of it and the implementors too.
>
> For the record: web developers don't usually take advantage of additional functionality that is provided by only one browser, or implemented in differing unpolished ways by different browsers. When possible we take the lowest common denominator approach to offer a consistent experience from browser to browser, and to avoid spending resources writing code that only a subset of users will be able to use anyways.
>
> What I'm saying is that the fact few devs worked with multiple ranges may not be a reflection of the quality of the API, but rather that because it wasn't implemented across browsers it wasn't worth from a cost-benefit point of view.
>
> And no I'm not saying the API is great either, just that saying "developers won't do it" is not really fair to anybody.

It's not just that it was only implemented by one UA.  It's also that
even in Firefox, multiple-range selections practically never occur.
The only way for a user to create them to to either Ctrl-select
multiple things, which practically nobody knows you can do; or select
a table column, which is also extremely uncommon; or maybe some other
obscure ways.  In evidence of this fact, Gecko code doesn't handle
them properly either.  Ehsan might be able to provide more details on
this if you're interested.

Received on Saturday, 24 January 2015 17:36:42 UTC