Re: [widgets] A proposal on widget modes

[Arve Bersvendsen]

On Thu, 22 Jan 2009 14:25:02 +0100, Priestley, Mark, VF-Group 
<mark.priest...@vodafone.com> wrote:

Hi Arve,

Thanks for your feedback - I'm glad our thinking is along similar lines.
Some responses to your comments below.

Some responses below. Note that I have cut parts to which I have no direct 
answer yet.

Application mode is required outside of a mobile context, to
differentiate between chromeless (e.g. Opera
Widgets/Dashboard/etc) and widgets with OS Chrome (e.g. the
Adobe AIR view state model)


[MP] We are of course fine with an application mode being defined, we
just
don't have an opinion on what it should be... From your description we
assume it will be as per the floating mode but with chrome?

There are some expected differences in behavior.

1. Floating widgets are expected to be draggable from any area of the widget, 
except where defined by [CSS] to not be draggable. 'Application' Widgets are 
not expected to exhibit this behavior.
2. Application widgets are expected to be user-resizable, and so authors cannot 
rely on the widget having any particular viewport size.

This makes them behave much more like 'fullscreen' in a mobile context, or like 
a regular web page in a browser.

a.)onModeChange - an event triggered when the widget
transitions to a
new mode;

It needs to be specified _when_ this event is triggered. Is it
prior to the mode switch taking place?  Is it a DOM event, or
a callback.  Is it cancellable?

[MP] We think that this should be a DOM event that takes place after the
switch of modes. Not cancellable.

The downside to letting this happen after the mode switch, is that the widget might in this callback want to 

a.) Only one floating mode widget can have focus. The widget with
focus must have the highest z-index;

This is in direct conflict with Window behavior on Unix/Linux
system, where a window can have a lower z-index than other
windows, and still be focused. It is also in conflict with
Opera's current desktop widget implementation, where it is
possible to push widgets to stick to the desktop and as such
be overlaid by other windows.

[MP] Good points - so we could instead say something like the last
widget that the user interacted with
has focus? Would that work?

I'm not really sure there is a need to say anything really - because we'd be 
well into the domain of specifying interaction requirements and behavior of 
operating systems.

--
Arve Bersvendsen

Developer, Opera Software ASA, http://www.opera.com/