[whatwg] File inputs, @accept, and expected behavior

[Rich Tibbett]

Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
> The file input gained the @accept attribute a little while ago, to
> indicate what type of file should be accepted.  It has three special
> values, "image/*", "video/*", and "audio/*".
>
> I believe one intent of these special values is that browsers may
> offer the user the ability to capture an image/video/audio with the
> webcam/mic and automatically set it as the value of the<input>,
> without the user having to create an intermediary file themselves.
>
> The spec doesn't give any indication of this, though, and I've
> surprised some people (browser devs, internally) when I tell them
> about @accept after they ask me about access the webcam/mic.

That is possible, yes. It's about providing a video/image/audio file or 
capturing from the webcam/mic by creating an on-the-fly file to return.

For explicitly requesting a webcam or microphone 'file' from a web page 
we have produced the W3C Media Capture spec [1].

For streaming webcam and/or microphone were working on and around the 
<device> element.

>
> Could we get a note added to the File Input section describing this intention?

It's entirely a interface option for UAs to provide (e.g. [2]) but the 
primary intention is on sharing normal video/audio/image files so a note 
in the spec seems a little unnecessary IMO.

- Rich

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/capture-api/
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/capture-api/#uiexamples