Re: Forms support in clients

Mike Meyer (mwm@contessa.phone.net)
Sat, 1 Oct 1994 03:21:52 +0100

> What we should be spending air time on is the abstract API between
> the browser and the script interpreter. Trusted scripts can be recognised
> as such as they will carry a digital signature plus certificates in the
> HTTP header. I will therefore concentrate on untrusted scripts:
>
> o scripts can [...]

> I don't have time to refine this, and would love to see other people
> work together on refining this into a detailed proposal, rather than
> arguing on which language to choose.

Fair enough. You missed a few I think are important. However, I think
the script language should double as a macro facility for the users,
which adds a number of things:

o scripts can manipulate the GUI directly (open/close/resize/move
windows & dialog boxes)

o scripts are associated can be associated with a specific
window in a multiwindowed browser.

o scripts can feed HTML to the Browser for display.

o scripts can change the browsers preferences settings.

And you've got one odd one here:

> o scripts can't send messages

Why not? That's the most useful thing about the scripting extensions
I use in Mosaic. Turning this off for "unsafe" scripts is probably a
good idea, but that's no reason to leave it off for everyone.

<mike