On 2015-10-16 18:00, Aymeric Vitte wrote:
Well, since I was on the list, I took the liberty of commenting a bit on this.
Unless you work for a browser vendor or is generally "recognized" for some
specialty, nothing seems to be of enough interest to even get briefly evaluated.
Regarding App-to-App interaction I'm personally mainly into the Web-to-Native
variant.
Here the browser vendors have reportedly [1,2] decided to implement Google's
Native Messaging API "as is" without any discussions in related W3C forums,
something they will surely regret because it has a long list of shortcomings,
ranging from a difficult deployment scheme to limited functionality and
performance issues, not to mention a highly deficient security model:
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webappsec/2015Oct/0071.html
That the browsers vendors have gotten major push-backs after removing
their previous extension schemes (NPAPI, ActiveX) is obvious, but that
doesn't motivate rushing into crude workarounds:
http://www.cnet.com/news/google-paves-over-hole-left-by-chrome-plug-in-ban/
Anders
1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebExtensions#Additional_APIs
2]
http://www.slashgear.com/project-spartan-is-now-edge-and-will-have-chrome-extensions-29381422/
Ccing the authors of [1], [2] and [3] if there is still an interest.
at this stage we don't have a deliverable for this work - i.e. the W3C
members haven't approved doing something like this in Web Platform working
group. Given that people repeatedly attempt to do it, I think the
conversation is worth having. Personally I think this is something the
Web needs
Indeed, that will be more than time to do so, but the current view of
the main actors or past specs seems a kind of narrowed and not very
imaginative/innovative, I don't think you should close the web intents
task force [5] but restart it on new bases.
This approach [1] and [2] looks quite good, simple and can cover all cases.
I don't know if we can call it a Web Component really for all cases but
let's call it as such.
In [2] examples the Bio component could be extracted to be passed to the
editor for example and/or could be shared on fb, and idem from fb be
edited, shared, etc
Or let's imagine that I am a 0 in web programming and even Web
Components are too complicate for me, I put an empty Google map and
edit/customize it via a Google map editor, there is [3] maybe too but
anyway the use cases are legions.
That's incredible that nobody can see this and that [1] did not get any
echo (this comment I especially dedicate it to some people that will
recognize themselves about some inappropriate comments, not to say more,
they made regarding the subject related to the last paragraph of this post).
The Intent service would then be a visible or a silent Web Component
discussing with the Intent client using postMessage.
Maybe the process could be instanciated with something specific in href
(as suggested in [2] again) but an Intent object still looks mandatory.
But in case of visible Intent service, the pop-up style looks very ugly
and old, something should be modified so it seems to appear in the
calling page, then the Intent service needs to have the possibility to
become invisible (after login for example).
I don't see any technical difficulty to spec and implement this (except
maybe how to avoid the horrible pop-up effect) and this covers everything.
If that happens the next step is to change our charter.
That is an administrative thing that takes a few weeks (largely to ensure
we get the IPR protection W3C standards can enjoy, which happens because
we spend the time to do the admin with legal processes) if there is some
broad-based support.
Unfortunately, despite of our efforts and patience, due to the lack of
agreement on this matter with the related W3C members, unless people
decide to restrict Intents to some trivial edit, share uses of simple
images, text, files, which looks quite limited (but surprisingly seems
enough for Microsoft, Mozilla and Google) and will necessarily end-up
redoing the spec again several years later, the specs will inevitably
cross again the path of the patent you know [4], for parts related to
the extraction mechanisms that time, which anyway the web will one day
implement.
[1]
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-web-intents/2014Oct/0001.html
[2]
http://dev.mygrid.org.uk/blog/2014/10/you-want-to-do-what-theres-an-app-for-that/
[3] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-web-intents/2015Feb/
[4] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webapps/2015AprJun/0911.html
[5]
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-web-intents/2015Oct/0000.html
