[whatwg] Proposal to extend registerProtocolHandler

[Peter Kasting]

On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 6:38 PM, Rich Tibbett <richt at opera.com> wrote:

> For registration, we could allow _auto-registration_ of protocol handlers
> only if a.) this is the first time the protocol is being registered and b.)
> when the registration request is coming directly from the top-most window
> context only (i.e. from a web page that users are actually visiting).
>

We can't allow auto-registration in any case (nor was Robert suggesting
that), or the protocol is registered to whoever happens to ask first,
land-grab style.  This is doubly bad if (like Chrome) the UA registers the
protocol handler OS-wide.

When the user wants to override the default protocol handler then the UA
> could allow e.g. ctrl-shift-click to force show the protocol handler dialog
> to the user.


These sorts of click modifiers are all taken already.  (Ctrl-shift-click
means "open link in new foreground tab".)

Users should be able to easily detach protocol handlers from this list with
> either [delete] or [delete all handlers for this domain] on this interface.


Honestly I think we're getting a bit afield here.  It's not really the
WHATWG's purview to say precisely what kind of interface UAs should provide.
 Even my comments about possibly wanting to check for a user gesture were
intended as motivation for discussing various APIs, not as proposed specs.

PK