Re: [webkit-dev] Disallowing modal dialogs during unload events
On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 3:54 AM, Maciej Stachowiak m...@apple.com wrote: Side note: when I see a dialog upon leaving a webpage, it is almost always the beforeunload dialog. I'm not sure I have ever seen a regular alert, prompt, confirm, or showModalDialog when leaving the page. This is part of why I'd like to see data. Would we be solving a real problem with this change, or just a theoretical one? In addition to the theoretical user benefit, I've been such a strong proponent of this change because it would greatly simplify some of Chromium's cross-process communication during tab/browser close. So, as long as it doesn't hurt existing, legitimate sites, I'd still like to see this happen. I'm happy with the resolution of trying this out in Chromium and getting some statistics about how often we hit this in the real world. Ojan ___ webkit-dev mailing list webkit-dev@lists.webkit.org http://lists.webkit.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/webkit-dev
Re: [webkit-dev] Disallowing modal dialogs during unload events
As you know, I'm a very strong advocate of this change. I think even if other ports aren't interested in experimenting with this change at the current time, that we should proceed to experiment with it in Chromium. I would very much like us to have data about how many sites are impacted, so that we can share that with others. -Darin On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 4:37 PM, Sreeram Ramachandran sree...@google.comwrote: We'd like to disallow modal dialogs (i.e., those arising from calls to alert, confirm, prompt or showModalDialog) during unload events (beforeunload, unload and pagehide) [1]. Chromium wants to do this [2]. Since this affects web compatibility, I'd like to get agreement from the other webkit ports as well. The benefits are: + Fewer annoyances for users who are trying to leave a page. + In the case of tab close, allows the browser to hide the tab before it has finished running the unload or pagehide event handlers (doesn't apply to beforeunload); gives the impression of better performance. This doesn't affect returning a non-null value from beforeunload; that will still cause the browser to show the stay-or-leave dialog. We think that is sufficient to satisfy legitimate needs to warn the user about data loss, etc. Outside webkit, this has been discussed on whatwg, but without a definite conclusion [3]. Firefox seems to be considering this as well [4]. All in favour, say aye! [1] https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56397 [2] http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=68780 [3] http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/whatwg-whatwg.org/2010-February/025080.html [4] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=391834 ___ webkit-dev mailing list webkit-dev@lists.webkit.org http://lists.webkit.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/webkit-dev ___ webkit-dev mailing list webkit-dev@lists.webkit.org http://lists.webkit.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/webkit-dev
Re: [webkit-dev] Disallowing modal dialogs during unload events
Is there data on: - The user impact of modal dialogs being fired from before unload, unload or page hide - how often does this happen? - The Web compatibility impact of removing this functionality (are the sites that do it using it for seemingly legitimate reasons)? I can think of two ways to gather the data: 1) Add some form of opt-in tracking to see how often users hit a modal dialog during an unload event, and sites where this is done, so we could determine if it causes breakage. 2) Run automated Web crawlers to find this out. Since we have a potential tradeoff between Web compatibility and usability, it would be good to get some data so that we can weigh the tradeoff. Side note: when I see a dialog upon leaving a webpage, it is almost always the beforeunload dialog. I'm not sure I have ever seen a regular alert, prompt, confirm, or showModalDialog when leaving the page. This is part of why I'd like to see data. Would we be solving a real problem with this change, or just a theoretical one? Regards, Maciej On Apr 6, 2011, at 4:37 PM, Sreeram Ramachandran wrote: We'd like to disallow modal dialogs (i.e., those arising from calls to alert, confirm, prompt or showModalDialog) during unload events (beforeunload, unload and pagehide) [1]. Chromium wants to do this [2]. Since this affects web compatibility, I'd like to get agreement from the other webkit ports as well. The benefits are: + Fewer annoyances for users who are trying to leave a page. + In the case of tab close, allows the browser to hide the tab before it has finished running the unload or pagehide event handlers (doesn't apply to beforeunload); gives the impression of better performance. This doesn't affect returning a non-null value from beforeunload; that will still cause the browser to show the stay-or-leave dialog. We think that is sufficient to satisfy legitimate needs to warn the user about data loss, etc. Outside webkit, this has been discussed on whatwg, but without a definite conclusion [3]. Firefox seems to be considering this as well [4]. All in favour, say aye! [1] https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56397 [2] http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=68780 [3] http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/whatwg-whatwg.org/2010-February/025080.html [4] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=391834 ___ webkit-dev mailing list webkit-dev@lists.webkit.org http://lists.webkit.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/webkit-dev ___ webkit-dev mailing list webkit-dev@lists.webkit.org http://lists.webkit.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/webkit-dev
Re: [webkit-dev] Disallowing modal dialogs during unload events
On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 10:54, Maciej Stachowiak m...@apple.com wrote: Is there data on: - The user impact of modal dialogs being fired from before unload, unload or page hide - how often does this happen? - The Web compatibility impact of removing this functionality (are the sites that do it using it for seemingly legitimate reasons)? Sorry, I don't have any data at the moment (actually, I don't even have any examples). I can think of two ways to gather the data: 1) Add some form of opt-in tracking to see how often users hit a modal dialog during an unload event, and sites where this is done, so we could determine if it causes breakage. We can collect aggregate stats from Chromium, but our privacy policy won't let us collect specific URLs or sites. So, even if we found that a very small percentage of users are affected by this, we won't be able to tell which sites they were on, or whether the dialogs were necessary or annoying. 2) Run automated Web crawlers to find this out. I'll try, but static analysis of js is hard/impossible; but perhaps I'll be able to find at least a couple of examples. Since we have a potential tradeoff between Web compatibility and usability, it would be good to get some data so that we can weigh the tradeoff. Side note: when I see a dialog upon leaving a webpage, it is almost always the beforeunload dialog. I'm not sure I have ever seen a regular alert, prompt, confirm, or showModalDialog when leaving the page. This is part of why I'd like to see data. Would we be solving a real problem with this change, or just a theoretical one? As agreed on #webkit, we'll proceed by enabling this in chromium and collecting some aggregate stats (for whatever that's worth), relying on bug reports to find any specific issues that arise. ___ webkit-dev mailing list webkit-dev@lists.webkit.org http://lists.webkit.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/webkit-dev
