Scroll To Text

[nickburris]

こんにちはTAG!

I'm requesting a TAG review of:

• Name: Scroll To Text
• Specification URL: N/A
• Explainer (containing user needs and example code)¹: https://github.com/WICG/ScrollToTextFragment
• GitHub issues (if you prefer feedback filed there): https://github.com/WICG/ScrollToTextFragment/issues
• Tests: N/A
• Primary contacts (and their relationship to the specification): @nickburris @bokand

Further details:

• Relevant time constraints or deadlines: [please provide]
• I have read and filled out the Self-Review Questionnare on Security and Privacy. The assessment is here.
• I have reviewed the TAG's API Design Principles
• The group where the work on this specification is:

We recommend the explainer to be in Markdown. On top of the usual information expected in the explainer, it is strongly recommended to add:

• Links to major pieces of multi-stakeholder review or discussion of this specification:
• Links to major unresolved issues or opposition with this specification:

You should also know that...

One of our major discussion points currently is how the targetText= indicator should be delimited in the URL fragment. See https://github.com/bokand/ScrollToTextFragment/issues/15. The latest idea here is that we could use a double-hash syntax (e.g. example.com#fragment##targetText=example) to avoid breaking websites that use the fragment for routing/state. The browser would parse the ##targetText= identifier and then remove it from the fragment.

We'd prefer the TAG provide feedback as (please select one):

• open issues in our GitHub repo for each point of feedback
• open a single issue in our GitHub repo for the entire review
• leave review feedback as a comment in this issue and @-notify [github usernames]

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[dbaron]

Is it worth having any similarity to RFC 5147's mechanism?

[torgo]

Hi - just noting that the assessment of the questionnaire appears blank.

[nickburris]

Is it worth having any similarity to RFC 5147's mechanism?

The problem with using character positions is that the references would be outdated much more quickly, for example if this were to be used for cross-references on Wikipedia, where articles are updated often. Naturally, text references will also go stale over time, but only when the actual target text is modified.

Hi - just noting that the assessment of the questionnaire appears blank.

Sorry - I misunderstood the template. Here is the questionnaire: https://github.com/bokand/ScrollToTextFragment/blob/master/security-privacy-questionnaire.md

[aarongustafson]

Some additional thoughts for consideration based on research & exploration we’ve been doing: https://github.com/MicrosoftEdge/MSEdgeExplainers/blob/master/Fragments/explainer.md

[annevk]

I couldn't find a description of how "Restricted to pages without an opener (no window.open)" is managed. (In particular, if A1 opens a popup A2 which then navigates A1 to V, V won't have an opener, but we certainly don't want this to work there.)

[nickburris]

I couldn't find a description of how "Restricted to pages without an opener (no window.open)" is managed. (In particular, if A1 opens a popup A2 which then navigates A1 to V, V won't have an opener, but we certainly don't want this to work there.)

The case you describe would indeed circumvent this. I'm not sure how we can mitigate this case - does anyone know of any precedent for this kind of restriction in spec already?

[nickburris]

FYI, we're currently exploring a way to improve web compatibility by placing the targetText behind a delimiter - e.g. a ## in the URL fragment separating the targetText which would then be stripped off and hidden from the page. This mitigates issues with sites that use the fragment for other purposes, e.g. https://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/lice-treatment#3##targetText=other%20options.-,Wet%20combing%20is%20one,or%20olive%20oil.,-But%20these%20may (from chromium bug 961440)

This is explored in https://github.com/bokand/ScrollToTextFragment/issues/15#issuecomment-496595958 and we'd appreciate TAG reviewers' thoughts on this issue!