After recently discovering custom protocol handlers[1], it struck me that it would be difficult to provide a decent user experience for those who used browsers which did not support the feature.
There have been previous calls to add further methods to the custom protocol ecosystem, such as a mozilla bug from 2008[2], and a separate discussion from January 2009[3]. However there’s been no solution, so I'd like to raise the issue of the registerProtocolHandler feature again. Here are some user stories that I feel represent these issues: 1) As a web developer I want to be able to tell when registration of protocols/schemes has either failed or been successful So that I can provide a fluid user experience 2) As a web developer I want to be able to ascertain whether the user-agent supports the registerProtocolHandler feature So that I can have an alternate experience for the user Note: I have submitted a pull request to Modernizr to cover story #2[4], I left my story above for posterity. 3) As a web designer / developer I want to be able to ascertain if another website has registered a custom protocol handler in the user’s browser So that I can knowingly design and implement an integration experience 4) As a web designer / developer I want to be able to ascertain whether the user has "installed" a custom protocol handler within their operating system So that I can knowingly design and implement an integration experience Footnotes: [1] http://updates.html5rocks.com/2011/06/Registering-a-custom-protocol-handler [2] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=440620 [3] http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/whatwg-whatwg.org/2009-January/018101.html [4] https://github.com/Modernizr/Modernizr/pull/324/files Further feature reference: » https://developer.mozilla.org/En/DOM/Window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler » https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Web-based_protocol_handlers » http://developers.whatwg.org/timers.html#custom-handlers NB: Thanks for the review from Mr Doug Schepers & Mr Oli Studholme Cheers, Ben
