[whatwg] HTML Device element status

[James Salsman]

On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 5:18 AM, Anne van Kesteren <annevk at opera.com> wrote:
>
> There are some advantages with <input>, but overall the design is ugly.

<input type=file> is buffered, which would seem to exclude the
possibility of onchange=form.submit() in any of its forms' elements,
but is otherwise parsimonious, while <device> is its unbuffered
counterpart.  Why is one method of transmission any more or less ugly
than the other?  Buffering can substantially reduce bandwidth.

Is there any reason not to protect both them with the same privacy and
security authorization dialogs, and render them mostly the same,
except for audio/* and video/* <input> you might have
record/pause/play/submit while <device> would have record/pause?  For
image/* the differences are less clear to me: perhaps <input> would
have a viewfinder, (expandable on mobiles) shutter button, a
filesystem browser button, and an (optional?) submit button, but an
image/* <device> might only have a viewfinder and a shutter button.
For the case of a camera, it would seem to me that the buffered
approach is also superior, but the unbuffered <device> approach would
allow audio and video teleconferencing.

Also, someone said it would be a good idea to mute audio input and
output from any hidden tab.  I think this may be a reasonable user
option (people who listen to podcasts might not like it), and wonder
if microphone or other audio input should be muted from any window and
tab without top-most focus and exposure.  Does anyone have thoughts on
that question?