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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>[Skip forward to paragraph four to avoid the
historical backdrop. ]</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>1. Seven or eight years ago I was working on a
mini-app [1] in the browser using VML. It allowed folks to build graphs
on-screen with a GUI and then to do standard graph theoretic things: color
nodes, find shortest paths, find dominating sets, copy and paste
subgraphs, etc. I've been intermittently rebuilding parts of it using
SVG instead of VML [2], but it's been gnarly work because of the ugly
cross-browser development issues involving web apps. It makes sense to me that
WHATWG came into existence to address some of the gnarly stuff like what I
bumped into. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>2. Over the years, I've watched with aggravated
dismay, as well as curious bemusement, as pieces of its once robust
(albeit single-browser -- given its use of VML) functionality have
gradually been eroded by new releases of the IE browser, as that browser moves,
toward what I presume is standards compliance. The app used to be
able to read and write files to local drive space, to commandeer CTRL
key sequences used by the browser and the OS, (for example CTRL T and CTRL
D used to mean things in my app, but now the browser has taken those
over as its own) and all manner of other things that a user expects of an
application. If I were a company rather than a teacher/researcher, then I would
have spent the necessary hours to modernize the code, perhaps. But it was not a
product, but freeware and it was research that I was able to put on hold as my
interests mutated.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>3. But some of the research has (because of what
might be called imperial entanglements) become relevant again, and so I
find myself needing to provide some fixes to some of the now derelict parts, or
better, to move the stuff to a more modern vector-based system like
SVG.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>4. Concerning the first thing I need to fix, I am
not sure if HTML5 currently provides a solution for. Here's the sitch: because
of an extensive use of CTRL sequences in the interface, the user will sometimes
accidentally do something like CTRL R (which the browser thinks is a refresh
command). In a regular app, if users stand in jeopardy of losing all their work,
the app usually warns them before quitting. The way I found to work around it
(that used to work) was to use onunload="confirm('save before quitting?').
Currently, however, IE seems to have removed my ability to intervene before it
erases all work. onbeforeunload=function (){ fix(everything)} doesn't seem to
help either.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>So the question: how does HTML 5 currently address
the issue and do browsers actually implement something along this line these
days?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Thanks for guidance here, and sorry if the issue
has already been satisfactorily resolved. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>cheers</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>David</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>[1] <A
href="http://srufaculty.sru.edu/david.dailey/grapher/">http://srufaculty.sru.edu/david.dailey/grapher/</A> (IE
only)</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>[2] <A
href="http://srufaculty.sru.edu/david.dailey/svg/graphs18.svg">http://srufaculty.sru.edu/david.dailey/svg/graphs18.svg</A> (everthing
but IE, or IE/ASV) </FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>