[whatwg] Web Storage, Editor's Draft 20 August 2010 - Request for enhancement

[Eric Uhrhane]

On Tue, Sep 14, 2010 at 4:52 AM, Jim Williams <jgwilliams at mindspring.com> wrote:
> I tried out local storage, used it to save the contents of a
> content-editable passage.  It worked great in Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and
> MSIE.  Only one problem:  Every time I switched browsers, I had to start
> over with the original unedited passage.  So I have two requests.
>
> 1.  I would like the browser vendors to all use the same implementation of
> localStorage, as this will greatly facilitate browser-independent viewing
> experiences.  As it stands, I have no idea how to maintain continuity if a
> user viewing my page in one browser switches to another browser. None.

If you need persistent cross-browser state, on a page that you
control, why not just store it server-side?
Then it also works from multiple computers, which even your proposed
modifications to localStorage won't get you.

> 2.  Kindly extend the specification so that other applications can make
> constructive use of localStorage.  Specifically, (a) establish a convention
> for associating keys with particular files (e.g., by prepending the file's
> path name to the key), and (b) allowing other applications to treat the file
> and its associated local storage as a single entity.  Doing this would allow
> a user to e-mail the current state of a file to a friend, so that both will
> have the same view of the file.  This ability to share "current" views of a
> file is useful for maintaining HTML's role as a communications vehicle.
>
> Jim Williams