[whatwg] Fullscreen changes to support <dialog>

[Scott González]

On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 3:58 AM, Anne van Kesteren <annevk at opera.com> wrote:

> I can see how it makes sense in the abstract. Browsers moved away from
> application-global modal dialogs to tab modal dialogs. I could see Twitter
> still wanting to you let you switch to @Connect or #Discover or search,
> while a modal dialog with user information is open. However, we could do
> that in a future version by allowing the size of ::backdrop to be adjusted
> by setting the top/left/bottom/right properties. Does that make sense?
>

I think in general, users will want to constrain to a specific element's
dimensions. In the vast majority of cases where I see anything constrained,
the dimensions are calculated based on the position and/or dimensions of
another element. However, there are definitely cases where users want to
constrain based on specific locations which may not be related to an
element.

I would also say that a large percentage of users struggle with
position/offset math, so defining top/left/bottom/right properties may be
tough for the average user. This is complicated by the fact that the
content on a page is likely dynamic and therefore so is the size of what
needs to be covered. I expect this would be further complicated by
responsive designs where the dimensions may change at any point, are are
likely not defined in pixel values in the first place. Perhaps the partial
page covering scenarios are uncommon enough that users who want this
functionality will have the knowledge required to implement it properly.