164252 - How about an 'optionalModifiers' attribute

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core :: XBL, defect)

Description

[Jonathan Watt [:jwatt]]

The modifiers attribute is a strict filter and I guess that can't change now.
However, if you have a large piece of code for handling events that is almost
the same even when different modifiers may or may not be set, it would be useful
to be able to handle events with the same handler code whether these handlers
are set or not. How about having the modifiers attribute mean that the handler
requires these modifiers, and something like an optionalModifiers that specifies
that the code will evaluate if these modifiers are present or not, and if a
modifer is not present in either attribute then the handler will not match an
event that has it set? The same idea would hold for the other attributes that
filter strictly.

Comment 1

[Anne (:annevk)]

Hixie: is such a thing in XBL2?
jwatt: still needed?

Comment 2

[Hixie (not reading bugmail)]

XBL2 doesn't exist yet, but I seem to recall considering this, if that counts.

Comment 3

[[e-mail]]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 164249 ***

Comment 4

[Jonathan Watt [:jwatt]]

Neil, as I commented in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=164249#c17
I don't like the syntax as provided by your fix to bug 164249. I left this bug
open because I'd like a clearer way to state which modifiers, if any, should be
ignored. Personally I think

  modifiers="control any, shift"

looks like it means we should match if control is active and not care about the
state of the other modifiers, or match if shift only is active. IMHO the real
desired match would be better and more clearly expressed as

  modifiers="shift ignore control"

or better still a separate attribute called 'optionalModifiers' or
'optional-modifiers'.

If you disagree, WONTFIX would be more appropriate than DUPLICATE.

Comment 5

[Paul Silaghi, QA [:pauly]]

(In reply to Jonathan Watt [:jwatt] from comment #4)
> If you disagree, WONTFIX would be more appropriate than DUPLICATE.
Any updates here ?

Comment 6

[Paul Silaghi, QA [:pauly]]

Dropping qawanted until new directions.

Comment 7

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

XBL is now disabled in Firefox (Bug 1583314) and is in the process of being removed from Gecko (Bug 1566221), so closing bugs requesting changes to its implementation as wontfix.