Comments on: On HTML 5 Drag and Drop

By: Thank you Jhon! You are OK

Thank you Jhon! You are OK — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 04:16:57 +0000

I am here to say something. I support some of the commenter. But not all. Good impression. Thanks

By: alos

alos — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:17:54 +0000

That is very shortsighted of you. Can you imagine dragging code from your Bespine to an article being written on another window in Google Docs? Moving your slides from 280Sildes to a presentation being done in another webapp? Moving calendar or contact info between apps? D&D Is a very interesting, I'm sure dragging between browser windows is just the start.

By: Laurent

Laurent — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 13:40:50 +0000

No, the D&D between browser windows is useless

By: Ryan

Ryan — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 03:43:59 +0000

Great post, good insightful look at the DnD API.

Like Jens Alfke said this API has been reversed engineered from Microsofts own proprientry API and is not new. There are however further proposed extensions to the current API such as the files attribute on the dataTransfer method that I wrote about http://www.thecssninja.com/javascript/drag-and-... this allows us to go in the other direction by dragging from our desktop into the browser.

By: Ben Vanik

Ben Vanik — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 03:23:43 +0000

Great post! One comment on the delayed drag change idea — I love it, but one thing it lacks is the ability for the drag target to filter the results. You would need a way to tell the drag event what types are being dragged. Cocoa does this with -[NSPasteboard addTypes:owner:] paired with [NSView registerForDraggedTypes:]. Just something to remember if you are begging people for API changes

By: Jens Alfke

Jens Alfke — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 19:47:33 +0000

Part of the problem, apparently, is that HTML drag-n-drop is *not* a new API. It's been in MSIE for about ten years, and is being standardized after the fact. What's in the spec can't really be changed in incompatible ways because there are a lot of websites that support the MSIE API.

(Note: I have no direct knowledge of DnD in MSIE, but this was the answer given by Hixie to some recent comments on the API's deficiencies on the WHATWG list.)

I'm actually doing a bit of work on DnD support in Chrome and WebKit. I have a WebKit patch out that fixes a bunch of nits with the values of dropEffect and effectAllowed, which will hopefully get reviewed and checked in soon.

By: gazhay

gazhay — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 17:14:33 +0000

You both think I haven't been involved – I have.
I was on the WHATWG and W3C mailing lists, and insulted off list by numerous of the “academic” snobs. The procedure is flawed, as is the use of HTML5 for web applications. Neither of you argued away that point, instead you said – it's the best we can do. Settling for second best is bull.

Mr. King, you also come from a silly point of view, Adobe Air, Silverlight and Flash all attempt to do what you suggest, so saying “getting adopted by thousands of corporations and millions of individuals in hundreds of countries on a sane timeframe, you're probably wrong, anyway.” is just plain pathetic. Take your delusions elsewhere.

By: J. King

J. King — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 17:03:29 +0000

Gee, why don't you trot out more baseless, unsubstantiated accusations while you're at it?

That reality (browser vendors are the ones who make browsers---amazing!) complicates getting the perfect outcome shouldn't surprise you, and it shouldn't discourage you, either. The endless march forward of technology is littered with imperfect solutions to complicated problems, with hacks layered upon each other neck-deep which enough effort and code have actually turned into something useful. It's nothing new, and it's not bad. If you think you can come up with another solution which actually has a chance in hell of getting adopted by thousands of corporations and millions of individuals in hundreds of countries on a sane timeframe, you're probably wrong, anyway.

For the record HTML5 -does- attempt to 'clean up "tag-soup"': read Section 9. A staggering amount of time has gone into making sure that future agents get a consistent, interoperable parse tree in standard mode while also mirroring existing behaviour as much as possible; ignoring all this hard work is folly.

By: Tinus

Tinus — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:19:45 +0000

That evolution is slow is conventional wisdom. I think Steven Den Beste said it best:

In the long run, Darwinian evolution sounds like a good idea. But like adventure, it’s better read about than experienced, because the only way it can really happen rapidly is with a high death rate.

By: Name

Name — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:11:10 +0000

At least some people try. Complaining that it will never work is exactly what I would expect from a “academic snob”. At least these guys dare to innovate!