2008/6/13 Borek Bernard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
Hi João,
you're right that everything important has been already said. I
have withdrawn this proposal because it has been pointed out that it
is not backwards compatible and the correct solution will be part of
CSS3 anyway (which is much more flexible - we will have not only
target-new, but also target-position; I guess you strongly dislike
both of them).
What's lovely about css, is that features like this can be easily
disabled with local stylesheet. Overriding _tab would requiring
running local script, which greater performance impact, and migh thave
unforseen consequences. So css gives greater control, with less
effort.
But the discussion has been interesting anyway. There is probably no
point in carrying on because we see the problem from two different
standpoints - you want to have the specs as "pure" as possible
while I
want them to be as flexible as possible so that it can accommodate
any
use case you can think of.
It's not about being pure, it's about not giving more control to the
webpage than it should have. For a webpage running in a tab or
separate window is exactly the same thing.
I kind of understand why simpler standards are better than the longer
ones but on the other hand, the lack of "_tab" or something similar
makes my user experience on some websites suboptimal (heck, even
frustrating sometimes). If you can't appreciate that different users
can have different user preferences ("I can't honestly come up with a
single reason why a webpage should open a new window instead of
tab"),
This is not a user preference. It's the complete opposite. The spec
would allow a user preference to be broken by spaning windows or tabs
accordingly to the webpage author's liking.
Historically, we've seen that giving webpage control over the user's
browser in someway can be abused: alert(), open(), oncontextmenu ...
you will probably have hard times understanding my points. But your
view is quite common as I've learned :)
Regards,
Borek
----- Original Message ----
From: João Eiras <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Borek Bernard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; whatwg@lists.whatwg.org
Sent: Thursday, 12 June, 2008 7:17:19 PM
Subject: Re: [whatwg] Proposal: target="_tab"
Hi ! I didn't saw that reply.
I'm not sure why you keep insisting that it's up to the browser --
IMO, it's
up to the USER.
You're not understanding me:
when I say browser, obviously I mean client, client-side, browser,
user or whatever you want to call it, as opposed to web application
or
server-side
Also, having means to open new tabs as opposed to new windows in
the specs
is nothing against the user preference, in fact, it helps to
express the
user preference if the browser fails to provide it.
Then we're going to bloat a specification due to browser
idiosyncrasies ?
Allowing a page to control such behavior would be bad. Currently
browsers with tabbed interface manage to unclutter the taskbar and
desktop, while aggregate pages inside a single window, which is
overall good for the user's experience, good for performance, good
usability.
We'd be providing a mechanism that is not backwards compatible with
the current state of the art user agents, although we've seen that
new
features heavily demanded get implemented quickly, and we'd be
providing, again, authors with mechanism to degrade the user's
experience.
I can't honestly come up with a single reason why a webpage should
open a new window instead of tab. All use cases you can come up fit
better if new tabs are open. If you don't like the fact that a tab
fits the entire window, you can either detach it, your use a user
agent that support MDI interface.
With all this say now your going to tell me I'm contradicting myself
by supporting windows now. No, you'd be wrong. I'd expect a browser
to
always open tabs if there's a _blank target. Having _target and_tab
would require UA's to support two different way of opening new pages:
tabbed and detached ones.
For me it's all a matter of letting the user control the web page.
Considering this discussion is still going to last a bit, and
everything significant that could be said by me and others was
said, I
rest my case.
Cheers.
2008/6/12 Kristof Zelechovski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
Programmatically controlling the containment of a new window is a
two-edged
sword: you can provide for the lame user agent but you can also
override
user settings. The latter possibility is more painful; upgrading
the
browser is easier than dealing with an impertinent Web site.
IMHO,
Chris
P.S.: If you want your answer to go to João only, just send it
exclusively
to him.
-----Original Message-----
From: Borek Bernard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 11:25 AM
To: Joao Eiras; Kristof Zelechovski; Ian Hickson; whatwg@lists.whatwg.org
Subject: Re: [whatwg] Proposal: target="_tab"
Hi João,
I'm not sure why you keep insisting that it's up to the browser --
IMO, it's
up to the USER. Please read all my arguments before, it's not true
that a
user using a tabbed browser always prefers opening new tabs
instead of new
windows. That's just your user preference.
Also, having means to open new tabs as opposed to new windows in
the specs
is nothing against the user preference, in fact, it helps to
express the
user preference if the browser fails to provide it.
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