560585 - Message namespaces for easier cleanup

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core :: DOM: Content Processes, defect)

Description

[Benjamin Stover (:stechz)]

This is a proposal.

jQuery implements a neat idea on top of its event model: namespaces (see http://api.jquery.com/bind/).  It allows for cleanup of things with similar lifetimes (for instance, the lifetime of the window, the lifetime of a webpage, or the lifetime of an object).  For message receiver, what if we did something similar?

For instance, messages in e10s Fennec's case, most (perhaps all) are window lifetime.  If we could unregister them all at once (removeMessageListener("", "window") or removeMessageListener(".window") like jQuery) in many cases we'd save ourselves the init/shutdown pattern we have to use for events.  It would be harder to leave a removeMessageListener out.

Comment 1

[Andrew McCreight [:mccr8]]

It looks like this is talking about message manager, so I'll move it to DOM: Content Processes. That being said, message manager is mostly deprecated now, and we do have JS window actors with a lifetime tied to the window so at least one major use case is implemented.