[cap-talk] Webkeys vs. the web

[Sam Mason]

On Thu, Apr 02, 2009 at 07:07:05PM +0100, David-Sarah Hopwood wrote:
> Sam Mason wrote:
> > On Thu, Apr 02, 2009 at 04:39:27PM +0000, Karp, Alan H wrote:
> >> Sam Mason wrote:
> >>> There are two general purpose designating actions that spring to mind;
> >>>
> >>> 1) the user clicking a "Copy this Link" button.
> >>
> >> Do you mean right-click Copy Link Address?  If so, that's one concern.  
> > 
> > No, sorry I edited the explanation out of my email before I sent it for
> > some reason.  I meant that there should be a "Copy this Link" button as
> > appears in, say, Google Maps.  The user should have to hit this, and
> > it's this that performs the action of designation.
> 
> I don't see any significant difference in expected user intent between
> clicking "Copy Link Address/Location" in a context menu, and clicking
> a button that says "Copy this Link". If anything, the former is more
> explicit, since a button may do almost anything; what the text of a button
> says is merely advisory, and in general untrustworthy.

The context menu gets the value from the "href" of the anchor which is
also what gets copied and pasted to other documents.  If we want to save
the user from exposing this then we want to make the anchor's href point
somewhere bland and generally inert.  Clicking on a "Copy this Link"
allows the page's code to bring up some sort of edit box (like Google
maps) that contains an authority designating capability.

> Besides, clicking a button in page content *obviously* shouldn't be able
> to affect the clipboard.

Ack, web pages, as far as I know, can't put things on the clipboard.
This is just about exposing the "right" thing to the web browser so it
can be copied by the user.

> More generally, I'm confused by the motivation for trying to duplicate
> standard browser features (history, the back button, link copying, etc.)
> in page content. *If* the standard feature doesn't do what is expected,
> then that needs to be fixed; adding a similar feature to the page that
> does something subtly different is a step in the wrong direction for
> real usability.

Does it make any more sense now?  It would be nice not to have to do
this, but I can't see any way of keeping copy/paste safe otherwise.

-- 
  Sam  http://samason.me.uk/