Allow me to clarify my position. My expectation is NOT for the browsers' default action on "copy"/"cut" to convert HTML into RTF. I do not see any such implication of that behavior in the spec language [1].
Rather, I just want to ensure that browsers will honor/maintain that clipboard format/segment if it is set during a custom "copy" event handler using the `event.clipboardData.setData` method. The current language of the spec [2] leaves the possibility open for an implementor to choose to ignore/discard any data formats that are not on the mandatory data types list [1], and I find that worrysome. Is the problem that spec may be implying that the browser must know what to do with the data when PASTING from a clipboard segment associated with a mandatory data type? I could see that as more of a sticking point for implementors... but again, I really just want to ensure that the "application/rtf" clipboard segment is simply left intact bi-directionally. If the spec were to be updated to generally ensure that type of maintained/untouched transfer for data types that are NOT on the mandatory data types list (i.e. "custom data types"), then I would be fine leaving "application/rtf" OFF the mandatory data types list. Can we get some clarification on the vendor pushback reasoning in this regard? Thanks! [1]: http://dev.w3.org/2006/webapi/clipops/clipops.html#mandatory-data-types [2]: http://dev.w3.org/2006/webapi/clipops/clipops.html#writing-contents-to-the-clipboard Sincerely, James M. Greene On Feb 11, 2015 3:15 PM, "Hallvord Reiar Michaelsen Steen" < hst...@mozilla.com> wrote: > On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 3:34 PM, James M. Greene <james.m.gre...@gmail.com > > wrote: > >> We never really came to a decision on if RTF ("application/rtf") should >> be listed as a mandatory MIME type but the general consensus seemed to be >> leaning toward "yes": >> >> https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webapps/2013OctDec/0197.html >> > > There was some pushback from vendors - and I think their arguments were > reasonable. Why should a web browser have to include code to generate RTF > documents to write them to the clipboard? It's going to be a non-trivial > amount of code, it will be rarely executed and could easily come with > exploitable security vulnerabilities. It only makes sense to require this > if there is a significant amount of software out there that supports > pasting RTF data but does *NOT* support pasting HTML data - so that if we > mandate support for writing HTML to the clipboard but leave RTF out, many > users will have problems pasting text with formatting into another > application. How many applications would have this issue on the various > platforms? How widely are they used? Would users even expect to be able to > preserve formatting on pasting into or copying from these applications? > > A reply from you in the earlier discussion of these questions is here: > https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webapps/2014JulSep/0325.html > > -Hallvord, wearing an invisible clipboard spec editor hat >