[whatwg] A few editing suggestions for the HTML5 spec

[Ian Hickson]

On Sun, 15 Apr 2007, Geoffrey Garen wrote:
> 
> "Some of the algorithms in this specification, for historical  
> reasons, require the user agent to pause until some condition has  
> been met. While a user agent is paused, it must ensure that no  
> scripts execute (e.g. no event handlers, no timers, etc). User agents  
> should remain responsive to user input while paused, however."
> 
> How should a user agent respond to user input that would cause an  
> event handler to fire, like clicking on a button?

On Sun, 15 Apr 2007, Kristof Zelechovski wrote:
>
> Pressing a button when the user agent is in paused state should cause the
> button to remain pressed until the user agent wakes up and execution of the
> associated event handlers should be deferred.

On Sun, 15 Apr 2007, Geoffrey Garen wrote:
> >
> > Pressing a button when the user agent is in paused state should cause the
> > button to remain pressed until the user agent wakes up and execution of the
> > associated event handlers should be deferred.
> 
> So, if I had N buttons in a page, does that mean that all N could potentially
> end up in a pressed state?

On Sun, 15 Apr 2007, Kristof Zelechovski wrote:
>
> Methinks, if several buttons are pressed, the events should be placed in the
> queue and executed in the order of appearance.  If the page is reloaded as a
> result of an event handler, all remaining events should be discarded as
> usual.
>
> I am not quite sure how to handle this situation because the user could end
> up pressing all of the buttons out of impatience in search for a button that
> "works".  It is irrelevant if the first button pressed causes a reload,
> otherwise the result may not meet the user's expectation.  The user agent
> should indicate its busy state with an hourglass pointer, a status message,
> an animated icon, whatever in order to prevent this misunderstanding.

On Sun, 15 Apr 2007, Kristof Zelechovski wrote:
>
> Yes, they could, just like storey buttons in the lift.

This seems like exactly the kind of thing that we should leave up to the 
user agents, so I haven't specified anything. I don't really see that, 
from an interoperability perspective, it really matters. If there's a case 
in which it matters, though, do let me know so we can specify it.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'