[whatwg] IRC and WWW integration proposal

[Jonathan Garbee]

Usecase 1: This can already be covered by having the bot/engine look for an
irc protocol link on the page.

Usecase 2 part one: Operating systems already do this. They see an irc://
protocol and ask what to open it with or use their already assigned option.
No need for a browser to take this over.

Usecase 2 part two: Most browsers offer extension platforms, someone can
easily create one to look for irc:// links and display something based on
that.

I personally am not seeing any major benefit by having the proposed
additions added into spec(s). Just more work for developers both on
browsers and websites if they chose to support this.

-Garbee



>   Usecase 1: I search for python and see a link to their website in search
> results, and the search engine looks up both title and IRC info - so I see
> webpage title, and a link to its irc network or channel.
>   Usecase 2: Browsers implement some interface to display IRC channel link
> or window when user visits a page. Advantages:
>   - The websites will benefit from this and will not have to manually
> embed qwebirc or Mibbit instances into their webpages anymore[1], leaving
> the IRC client preference to the user (choose from locally installed
> clients, or a client provided by the website).
>   - User would not have to skim a page of text to locate and click an
> irc:// link manually, as such links would be a part of browser interface
> (an IRC icon like RSS feed icon?).
>
>