[whatwg] Proposal for local-storage file management

[Jens Alfke]

On Sep 4, 2009, at 2:38 PM, Ian Hickson wrote:

> Right. My point is the site can do that already, since we don't ever
> _stop_ the site from using the local storage area. It can prompt you  
> for
> a name directly, without UA involvement.

I'm sorry, I don't understand that. We must somehow be talking about  
completely different things. Sure, the site can call prompt() to get a  
name, but how can the site then create a file on the user's machine?  
I'm talking about the user agent responding to the site's request for  
local storage by putting up a platform Save As dialog to let the user  
choose where to put it (with a reasonable default location.)

>> You can't store 50MB of data in a cookie. I'm talking about the  
>> entire
>> local storage of a site here, not a 40-byte session ID or something.
>
> Then that distinction can be what is exposed in the UI to distinguish
> "boring" storage from "important" storage.

Size isn't an indicator of importance, if that's what you mean. A 100- 
byte email draft could be vitally important, while 50MB of downloaded  
cached textures for a game isn't. "Importance" is an application- 
specific property and the UA's not going to be able to guess it.

—Jens