Author | Lightnews

Keith Cirkel

Keith Cirkel

@keithamus.social

1.8K followers 1.1K following 310 posts

Software Cyber Shepherd. Web platform engineer. Participant: WHATWG, CSSWG, ARIAWG, OpenUICG, WebComponents CG Website: https://keithcirkel.co.uk/ GitHub: https://github.com/keithamus Mastodon: https://indieweb.social/@keithamus

keithcirkel.co.uk

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Keith Cirkel @keithamus.social · 1d

One problem with the web platform I’m thinking about how to solve: keyboard shortcuts.

I’ve written what I see as the requirements here: github.com/openui/open-...

I want to hear from devs who’ve worked on big apps/sites with shortcuts and see what I’m missing, and how they’ve solved this.

Keith Cirkel @keithamus.social · 2d

For example, some elements of XSLT have been broken in several browsers for a good while and only since this deprecation have people noticed.

Keith Cirkel @keithamus.social · 2d

I've spoken to devs who've pushed back on pdfjs, mostly because of the way pdfs are not "first class" so the interaction cab be confusing for their customers, but that's incidental to the extension I guess.

I think I agree though, but the question becomes how often is it used?

Keith Cirkel @keithamus.social · 2d

AIUI Chrome will - upon the user first visiting an XSLT adorned document - suggest the user download the extension. I think there's an opportunity to have the extension built-in but historically users have pushed back heavily on built-in extensions, though.

Keith Cirkel @keithamus.social · 2d

It seems straightforward for devs to ship a JS version of XSLT, they can pick their own version, and aren't stuck to whatever the browser ships. To me this seems like a win for developers, but I'd like to hear why it's not.

Keith Cirkel @keithamus.social · 2d

...but to jump to supporting 3.0 seems like high-effort low-reward considering the total userbase of XSLT.

I'd like to think of these as two separate issues though. Right now we're saying "XSLT 1.0 isn't good for anyone" and the next step is "BYO XSLT" which seems palatable to some, but not others

Keith Cirkel @keithamus.social · 2d

I'm very happy to make the case, and have done so. Browser engineers involved in this have poured over all the comments to do with XSLT and there has been a lot of consideration about what is the right path forward. Continuing to support XSLT 1.0 doesn't seem right; many involved want 3.0 support...

Keith Cirkel @keithamus.social · 2d

Text fragment links are shipped in chrome and Firefox iirc. Do they solve this issue? developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/W...

Text fragments - URIs | MDN

Text fragments link directly to specific text in a web page, without requiring the page author to add an ID. They use a special syntax in the URL fragment. This feature lets you create deep links to c...

developer.mozilla.org

Keith Cirkel @keithamus.social · 3d

There's been movement on this. It's hard to find the right balance of what the browser should do and how it makes it easier for developers, though.

Rest assured we'll keep working on it!

Keith Cirkel @keithamus.social · 3d

AIUI if you don't have an `&` then it's counted as a child combinator (the ` ` character). So I guess one way to think about it is that `&` smooshes the selectors together, whereas no `&` leaves whitespace - therefore child combinator.

Keith Cirkel @keithamus.social · 3d

To many, it seems. I believe it's being discussed next week! 🍆

Keith Cirkel @keithamus.social · 3d

It's also extremely unknowable for the browser (because of a whole bunch of complexity), and is computed as the user makes the interaction to move to the next focusable element.

There's progress in this direction though, namely: open-ui.org/components/b...

beforefocus/focusNext (Explainer) | Open UI

Keith Cirkel @keithamus.social · 3d

This is being worked on! The latest iteration is w3c.github.io/gpc/. The big problem here is that legislature needs to get involved, and if you think web standards are slow, wait til you see how long it takes to get unilateral agreement from global governments 😂😭

Global Privacy Control (GPC)

Keith Cirkel @keithamus.social · 3d

Right, the polyfill might be viable but it seems of the very few people who are keen on XSLT, there's a portion who don't seem to like the idea of a polyfill.

Even with the polyfill, there are inherent security issues, AIUI, because script can run in surprising places, but I am not fully read up.

Keith Cirkel @keithamus.social · 3d

QR codes are likely something tenable, but I'm curious - they're very customisable, e.g. with center images, colours, rounded corners, the number of check bits, etc. What does an API look for this that doesn't become attribute soup?

Keith Cirkel @keithamus.social · 3d

On self-links for headings, can you help me understand the problem? I have some guesses as to what this means but I'm not sure.

Keith Cirkel @keithamus.social · 3d

w3c.github.io/gpc/ may be a solution to cookie dialogs. TL;DR, it's like the old DNT header but this time with actual legislative weight.

Global Privacy Control (GPC)

Keith Cirkel @keithamus.social · 3d

I think you'd need an `&` there, so e.g.

input:hover {
&::file-selector-button {}
}

Keith Cirkel @keithamus.social · 3d

Developers voices always matter! That’s exactly why we’re here.

Having said that, xslt is… complicated. No one maintains any of the existing implementations and building a new one would be a huge lift for what it seen as a very small user base. It’s hard to justify its place in the web.

Keith Cirkel @keithamus.social · 3d

What benefit do you see about getting a reference to a node without getting the tree referenced also?

Keith Cirkel @keithamus.social · 3d

Do you have a link? What capabilities are missing?

Keith Cirkel @keithamus.social · 3d

Can you say more on this one. What limitations does top-layer have for you? How would a global z-index solve these?

Keith Cirkel @keithamus.social · 3d

Could you say more on these?

Keith Cirkel @keithamus.social · 3d

It’s being discussed next Thursday IIRC!

Keith Cirkel @keithamus.social · 3d

Could you tell me the kind of components you’d build without JS? I’m curious because I find it hard to imagine what could be accomplished without having to eventually resort to script.