Is `NavigateEvent` meant to be user constructable?

[rschristian]

What is the issue with the HTML Standard?

Disclaimer: I'm not the most familiar with these specs, at most I dabble.

I've been playing around with the new Navigation API and by chance I tried to manually create a NavigateEvent in a test suite only to find it seemingly cannot be created, despite having a constructor, as the NavigationDestination interface cannot be satisfied. E.g.,

new NavigateEvent('navigate', { destination: { ... } });

Uncaught TypeError: Failed to construct 'NavigateEvent': Failed to read the 'destination' property from 'NavigateEventInit': Failed to convert value to 'NavigationDestination'.

As far as I can tell there's no way to satisfy the NavigationDestination interface, not by supplying all attributes or only a subset, nor can it be omitted as the destination field is a required member.

So a few possibilities, as I see them:

1. Users aren't meant to be able to form a NavigateEvent, in which case, should it have a constructor?
2. NavigationDestination should have a constructor but does not.

I should add this wasn't an actual issue in my tests, was just trying various things out whilst reading the spec. I don't personally have an issue if NavigateEvent is not user constructable.

[domenic]

It has a constructor, but as you've found, getting a NavigationDestination is not very easy. You can get one from another NavigateEvent.

[rschristian]

Well I know it has a constructor today, the question was, should it?

If the intention is that we can only get a NavigationDestination from another event, that's a pretty useless constructor, no? Creating a NavigateEvent from an existing NavigateEvent seems like it'd be a niche need?

Fair enough if this is the intention, just seems kinda odd to have a constructor for an event that you can't actually construct without already having that event on hand.

[annevk]

All events have a constructor. That's somewhat inherent in their design. Not all of them are that useful and whether they should be improved is very much "it depends".

[rschristian]

Ah cheers, wasn't aware other events couldn't be constructed from scratch either. Well not a mistake anyway, which is mainly what I was wondering.

Thanks!