[whatwg] Some likeness of DOM Session scope

[Ian Hickson]

On Fri, 22 Apr 2005, Dimitri Glazkov wrote:

> Maybe it would a better idea to introduce functionality that 
> standardizes a usability-perfect simulation of a request within the same 
> page? I think that is what Brad is writing about.
> 
> In other words, instead of trying to come up with a vehicle that allows 
> you to pass data across independent requests, devise ways to:
> 
> * identify (create) state of an application inside of a  page
> * communicate it to the browser's address bar and history navigation
> * restore the state when the browser asks for it (via back/forward or bookmark).
> 
> With this in place, history can be manipulated at will and a transparent 
> user experience of browsing multiple pages can be created within the 
> same actual page.
> 
> I believe Microsoft has toyed with this concept in IE5 by introducing 
> #default#saveFavorite and #default#saveHistory behaviors.
> 
> Or maybe it's both: a serializable/deserializable persistence mechanism 
> across independents requests and the way to manipulate the history.

I used this idea for the window.history.pushState() idea:

   http://whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#the-session

Let me know if you have any comments.

It doesn't cover the bookmark case, only the back-forward case, so I don't 
think this removes the need for a cross-page-load and persistent local 
store. You still need something for, e.g. offline applications, and for 
applications whose "sessions" are likely to outlive the actual browsing 
session. For most cases this information might be better dealt with using 
a session cookie and server-stored data, but I can definitely see some 
cases (especially games and "productivity" applications like 
word-processor-like things) that would require local data storage rather 
than wanting to depend on the network.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
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