[whatwg] Proposal: Input Method Editor API

[Hironori Bono (坊野 博典)]

Greetings,

I'm Hironori Bono, a software engineer of Google. In the
w3c-international ML, we have been discussing to write a proposal that
adds an IME API to HTML5. This proposal is not only for web
applications to control a system IME but also to write an IME in
JavaScript. Even though this proposal is still an infant phase, I
would like to post it to whatwg to hear comments from HTML experts.
Would it be possible to read the following document and give me your
comments?

  https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B8eVDHQ9_22-MzJhMTg2YmItNWU3NC00NzJmLThlMTAtYmU1ZTBlZWJhNzM0&hl=en&authkey=CLLHkFw

Thank you for your interest in advance.

Regards,

Hironori Bono
E-mail: hbono at google.com

On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 3:28 PM, Hironori Bono (坊野 博典) <hbono at google.com> wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> I have updated my proposal to add the InputMethodContext interface.
> Also I have added a simple example of an IME that uses this API. It is
> definitely helpful to give me your feedbacks to the updated one. (It
> may be better to send this proposal also to whatwg?)
>
> https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B8eVDHQ9_22-Y2M2N2YwNzMtMTNmNS00OTc5LTg0OTUtNjdiNzE3OTdlNjFl&hl=en&authkey=CIPh1qEF
>
> Regards,
>
> Hironori Bono
> E-mail: hbono at google.com
>
> On Fri, Oct 8, 2010 at 5:57 PM, Hironori Bono (坊野 博典) <hbono at google.com> wrote:
>> Nakano-san,
>>
>> Thank you for your response.
>> I will update the proposal to use the InputContext interface.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Hironori Bono
>> E-mail: hbono at google.com
>>
>> On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 8:52 PM, Masayuki Nakano <masayuki at d-toybox.com> wrote:
>>> Of course, we can do it :-)
>>>
>>> On 2010/10/07 18:41, Hironori Bono (坊野 博典) wrote:
>>>> Nakano-san,
>>>>
>>>> Thank you so much for your feedback.
>>>> I have once thought a similar idea of adding an InputContext()
>>>> function to an Element interface and retrieve the input context from
>>>> an element as listed in the following snippet.
>>>>
>>>>   var element = document.getElementById('test');
>>>>   var context = element.getInputContext(); // or
>>>> element.getContext('input-method');
>>>>   context.setComposition(composition);
>>>>   context.confirmComposition();
>>>>
>>>> Nevertheless, I'm not sure we can implement such interface on all
>>>> major user-agents. (I think we can implement this idea on WebKit.)
>>>> Would it be possible to give me whether we can implement such
>>>> InputContext interface on Firefox?
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>>
>>>> Hironori Bono
>>>> E-mail: hbono at google.com
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 2:19 PM, Masayuki Nakano<masayuki at d-toybox.com>  wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Sorry for the delay.
>>>>>
>>>>> The text-decoration-style property is updated in the latest working draft.
>>>>>
>>>>> The dot-dash and dot-dot-dash are dropped, they aren't also needed by IME composition rendering. So, you can drop these values from your proposal.
>>>>>
>>>>> I have some concern. On Win/Mac/Linux, if web browsers hoped, they could implement multiple IME context for every editors. So, InputMethodManager isn't useful on such browsers.
>>>>>
>>>>> So, I think that all editable elements should have "InputMethodContext" property and it should have composition, setEnable() and etc. Then, your proposal doesn't make any limitation of implementation of browsers.
>>>>>
>>>>>> void setEnable(in Node node, in boolean enable);
>>>>>
>>>>> The result should be boolean. On the current proposal, web developers cannot check whether it succeeded or not.
>>>>>
>>>>>> The setOpenState() method
>>>>>> [NOTE:
>>>>>> do we need to notice this event to JavaScript IMEs? If so, what is the best option?]
>>>>>
>>>>> Yes, I think so. I think that there should be an interface for Javascript IME. When it's registered to a context, web browser should disables native IME.
>>>>>
>>>>>> The hasComposition() method
>>>>>> Returns true when the hosting user-agent is composing text. [NOTE: this function is
>>>>>> just copied from the one of WebKit to hear opinions of developers of JavaScript-based
>>>>>> IMEs.]
>>>>>
>>>>> I think that JS-IME developers doesn't need to know whether there is a native composition or not. When JS-IME is enabled, web browsers should kill native IME on the context.
>>>>>
>>>>>> The setComposition() method
>>>>>> Updates the composition information of the hosting user-agent.
>>>>>> When a JavaScript-based IME starts a composition, it MUST call this function with the
>>>>>> appropriate composition information. When a JavaScript-based IME cancels an ongoing
>>>>>> composition, it MUST call this function wiith a composition object whose text is empty.
>>>>>> [NOTE: this function is just copied from the one of WebKit to hear opinions of developers
>>>>>> of JavaScript-based IMEs.]
>>>>>
>>>>> So, I think that this is go away to another interface which is for JS-IME.
>>>>>
>>>>>> The confirmComposition() method
>>>>>> Finishes the ongoing composition of the hosting user-agent. [NOTE: this function is
>>>>>> just copied from the one of WebKit to hear opinions of developers of JavaScript-based
>>>>>> IMEs.]
>>>>>
>>>>> When JS-IME is registered, this should be done automatically, I think. But for web developers, I think this method is needed.
>>>>>
>>>>> On 2010/09/27 12:46, Hironori Bono (坊野 博典) wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Greetings,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thank you so much for all of your feedbacks. I have published an
>>>>>> updated proposal to the URL below:
>>>>>>    http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B8eVDHQ9_22-ZWJmNzE2YzYtNTYwNC00ZDM3LThkODgtZjc5ODI1Zjg4ZDhm&hl=en&authkey=CMPx4qQG
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This proposal does not only apply your comments (such as removing the
>>>>>> Candidate interface), but also added some experimental functions that
>>>>>> allows web-application developers to change the composition data owned
>>>>>> by user agents, i.e. functions that help developers implement IMEs.
>>>>>> (These functions are just copied from the IME functions of WebKit.
>>>>>> Therefore, it is definitely helpful to give me your feedbacks.)
>>>>>> Even though I thought I have applied all of your comments, I might
>>>>>> forget applying some. Please feel free to shoot me if I forgot
>>>>>> applying your comments.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thank you again for your interest in advance.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hironori Bono
>>>>>> E-mail: hbono at google.com
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Masayuki Nakano<masayuki at d-toybox.com>
>>>>> Manager, Internationalization, Mozilla Japan.
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Masayuki Nakano <masayuki at d-toybox.com>
>>> Manager, Internationalization, Mozilla Japan.
>>>
>>
>