[whatwg] Optional non-blocking mode for simple dialogs (alert, confirm, prompt).

[Ben Rimmington]

On 28 Feb 2011, at 17:52, Bjartur Thorlacius wrote:

> Can't we extend the existing window.status?
> It's supported by some older UAs (and ignored by others, because of
> confusing UI), but if the UI distinguishes page messages from browser
> and system messages, it's usable (aside from a historical API, but if
> browsers ignore setting the window.status to the empty string).

The window.status property [1] doesn't seem to be in the WHATWG HTML spec, I could only find the window.statusbar.visible property [2].

But I doubt that any mobile UAs have a status bar, and it's also hidden by default on Mac OS X Safari (and possibly other desktop UAs as well).

However, some mobile platforms have a local notification service [3] [4] [5] [6]. A new window.notify() function might be useful, so that a background card/tab/window can display a message to the user.

(Unfortunately, iOS currently uses a modal dialog for its UILocalNotification service. A better implementation might be to put a Notification Center icon in the multitasking UI, similar to the Print Center [7] used by AirPrint.)

[1] <https://developer.mozilla.org/en/DOM/window.status>

[2] <http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/browsers.html#browser-interface-elements>

[3] <http://blog.cocoia.com/2011/notify/>

[4] <http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/notifiers/notifications.html>

[5] <http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/iPhone/Reference/UILocalNotification_Class/>

[6] <http://developer.palm.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1677&Itemid=51>

[7] "Figure 6-4" and "Figure 6-5"
    <http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/2DDrawing/Conceptual/DrawingPrintingiOS/Printing/Printing.html>