[whatwg] modal and modeless windows

[Karl Pongratz]

I had a short look at the webforms and web applications specification at 
whatwg.org, I didn't find anything about modal and modeless windows. If 
there is anything to improve for html, xhtml, xforms and compound 
documents, then, in my opinion, the first missing feature that comes 
into my mind is the lack of modal and modeless windows. I believe that 
the current internet web "browsing" model doesn't work for web 
applications, the most simple example is to subscribe to the whatwg.org 
mailing list, that you can i.e. return to the subscription page via the 
web browser back button. The example is very simple, though can someone 
tell me why I should want, respectively why I am allowed to return to a 
form page I just submitted, does that make any sense? That's where most 
problems start in regard to web applications, this is not the only 
problem, but probably one of the most significant once, the browsing 
model. Can we change the browsing model? I think yes, by introducing 
modal and modeless windows, view documents by using the traditional 
browsing model, but anything else, manipulating data and form 
submission, would be done in modal windows, and more. Well, its not that 
simple, it may require to modify the caching model and other parts as 
well, however, I consider them as the primer for anything else.

Any comments, does anybody know if this issue is somewhere addressed, 
discussed?

Thanks

Karl