Re: [orion-dev] Browser-provided editor APIs

[Silenio Quarti <Silenio_Quarti@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Kevin,

Improving the basic editing support
on the browser would be much appreciated.

I agree with you that currently contentEditable
is the only way to support a10y, i18n, input method and bidi. But contentEditable
does not handle well large documents. This forced us to virtualize its
content and overwrite some of the default editing behavior provide by the
browser.

Is your goal to provide a text widget
(perhaps extending contentEditable) or to provide basic API to support
implementing a text widget? If the latter, these are some of the areas
that we found difficulties because of the lack of API on the browsers:

- clipboard support
- hit testing (bidi aware)
- cursor movement  (complexe scripts
aware, ie. Thai)
- full selection
- selection (bidi aware. ie. split cursors)

Silenio

From:	Kevin Dangoor <kdangoor@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To:	orion-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
Date:	08/10/2011 03:43 PM
Subject:	[orion-dev] Browser-provided editor APIs
Sent by:	orion-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx

---

Editors like Orion have to go to a lot of trouble to implement
basic editing behavior. The problem is that even with all of that trouble
taken, bidi text and accessibility are not easily supported (if at all!).
I know that Orion is taking the approach of leveraging contentEditable
where possible, but I also know that Orion is going to great lengths to
get there:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=660784#c15

Meanwhile the built-in editing code in browsers like Firefox already know
how to do a10y and bidi text. What if basic editing could be provided by
the browser and higher-level (code oriented, in Orion's case) functionality
could be added on top?

We can make it happen. We just need to figure out what the APIs should
be (and this is where people building the core editor code can help!)

What APIs would you want to outsource basic caret movement, selection and
typing behavior to the browser?

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Features/Desktop/EditorAPI

Kevin

--
Kevin Dangoor
product manager, developer tools

work: http://mozilla.com/
blog: http://blueskyonmars.com/
@dangoor
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