On 4/12/22 12:08 PM, Domenic Denicola wrote:
Contact emails
[email protected], [email protected]
Explainer
https://github.com/WICG/navigation-api/blob/main/README.md
<https://github.com/WICG/navigation-api/blob/main/README.md>
(Aside: This explainer is a master-class in writing explainers.
Incredibly well done - I really appreciate the effort that went into this).
Specification
https://wicg.github.io/navigation-api/
<https://wicg.github.io/navigation-api/>
Summary
The window.navigation API provides the ability to intercept and
initiate navigations, as well as introspect an application's history
entries. This provides a more useful alternative to window.history and
window.location, specifically aimed at the needs of single-page web
applications.
(Note: this API was formerly known as the app history API.)
Blink component
Blink>History
<https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/list?q=component:Blink%3EHistory>
TAG review
https://github.com/w3ctag/design-reviews/issues/605
<https://github.com/w3ctag/design-reviews/issues/605>
https://github.com/w3ctag/design-reviews/issues/717
<https://github.com/w3ctag/design-reviews/issues/717>
TAG review status
Issues addressed
Link to origin trial feedback summary
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oDtVhNJaDyEAqsthe07wJaGNVpt-g4TLB4A0-lU2lr4/edit?usp=sharing
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oDtVhNJaDyEAqsthe07wJaGNVpt-g4TLB4A0-lU2lr4/edit?usp=sharing>
Risks
Interoperability
The biggest interoperability risk with this API is that it is building
on a rocky foundation. The existing session history spec does not
match browsers very well, and browsers do not match each other. Since
this new API layers on top of the existing model, this could cause issues.
We have attempted to address this via a solid and well-tested
specification for the new API, as well as ongoing efforts in
whatwg/html PR #6315 <https://github.com/whatwg/html/pull/6315>and
elsewhere on the HTML Standard issue tracker
<https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3A%22topic%3A+navigation%22%2C%22topic%3A+history%22%2C%22topic%3A+browsing+context%22>to
reform the foundational parts of the specification. For example,
although the navigation API's new events, such as currententrychange,
are fired at well-specified times, there is an existing interop
problem <https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/1792>regarding the
timing of popstate vs. hashchange events, which makes it difficult to
write tests for the ordering of currententrychange vs.
hashchange/popstate. Working on such existing interop issues and
specification problems, and then expanding the navigation API test
suite to cover any such interactions, is our team's top priority after
this launch. See also this tracking issue
<https://github.com/WICG/navigation-api/issues/221>.
I do have slight concerns
<https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/1792#issuecomment-1101459682>
over the popstate/hashchange event change - I fear that might result in
more back button traps for Chromium users (that sadly Gecko users
experience today). But I could be wrong - do you have any plans to
measure and monitor abuse? Or do we have existing metrics?
Regarding whether this new API will be implemented in other browsers,
we have been encouraged by the consistent and positive collaboration
with Gecko engineers, which has led to several API changes and a good
amount of review. (We have no signal from WebKit.)
Compatibility
This has been the team's main focus for the last few months, as we
burned through the list of potentially-compat-impacting issues
<https://github.com/WICG/navigation-api/milestone/1>. In collaboration
with Gecko this led to several improvements, such as the API rename
(from app history), a change
<https://github.com/WICG/navigation-api/issues/111>in how replacement
navigations are requested, and the addition
<https://github.com/WICG/navigation-api/issues/76>of an indicator for
when a download is requested. We believe the remaining issues (3 at
the time of writing) are manageable:
*
#72 <https://github.com/WICG/navigation-api/issues/72>: this will
result in firing an event more often during extreme edge case
scenarios involving replacement navigations, or in
less-rare-but-still-rare scenarios involving the user clearing
their history. Neither case should prove problematic.
*
#207 <https://github.com/WICG/navigation-api/issues/207>: the most
likely solution will either be leaving things as they are, or
changing the timing of an event in a way that will not disturb
"normal" usage of the API. Although such a timing change could be
risky if this API had wide deployment, we believe that changing
the timing within a milestone or three would not be problematic if
it ends up being desirable.
*
#202 <https://github.com/WICG/navigation-api/issues/202>: this
issue is about the default for how focus is managed following a
navigation API-intercepted navigation. We believe the
currently-chosen default is probably the best, especially given
testaments on that thread from the accessibility community and
from web framework authors. However we have not yet closed the
issue as we haven't concluded the discussion with Gecko engineers.
Similar to #207, this would probably be changeable within a few
milestones if necessary, without significant impact to sites using
the API. And if we did change it, early-adopter sites could easily
restore the previous behavior by changing the value of an option.
I agree that these issues seem tractable in the near-term.
Signals
Gecko: No signal
<https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/543>. Initial
positive opinions on the issue, and continued engagement on the
design, but not yet an official position.
WebKit: No signal
<https://lists.webkit.org/pipermail/webkit-dev/2021-September/031987.html>.
Web developers: Strongly positive
<https://github.com/WICG/proposals/issues/20>. The initial public
proposal, as well as the issue tracker and Twitter, has had great
engagement and enthusiasm from developers. Origin trial feedback was
also encouraging. In addition, we have several conversations going on
with frameworks, libraries, and larger websites to ensure that we're
solving the problems they see with today's history API. So far
reactions have been either positive, or requesting that we add
additional functionality (most notably #32
<https://github.com/WICG/app-history/issues/32>).
Ergonomics
Although this API layers onto the same underlying model as
window.history, and will have well-specified interactions with it, the
exact integrations may be confusing. (For example,
navigation.navigate() will behave differently from
history.pushState().) We've done our best to smooth over these rough
edges where possible, but have favored making the navigation API
pleasant to use over making it perfectly align with window.history.
Activation
This feature is hard to polyfill, but developers have managed to
produce something that works in many cases: frehner/appHistory
<https://github.com/frehner/appHistory>is one, and
virtualstate/navigation
<https://github.com/virtualstate/navigation>another.
We've also seen a pattern where developers have existing
history/navigation wrappers (e.g. router libraries or app-specific
history and navigation code) which they can adapt with a new
navigation API-based backend for browsers that support it.
Security
We believe the security risks of this feature are minimal because of
how it is scoped to same-origin contiguous history entries, and
similarly only allows interception of same-origin navigations. We also
need to ensure that we don't allow "trapping" the user by preventing
them from using their back button; the API is designed to prevent this.
See the specification's security and privacy discussion
<https://wicg.github.io/navigation-api/#security-privacy>for more.
WebView Application Risks
Does this intent deprecate or change behavior of existing APIs, such
that it has potentially high risk for Android WebView-based applications?
This feature does not introduce any changes to existing APIs.
Debuggability
This feature mostly has no need for extended tooling.
crbug.com/1252940
<https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1252940>tracked
adding the newly-introduced events to the Event Listener Breakpoints
panel.
Is this feature fully tested by web-platform-tests
<https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/master/docs/testing/web_platform_tests.md>?
Yes
<https://wpt.fyi/results/navigation-api?label=master&label=experimental&aligned>.
These results show a strange number of failures for Chromium. We
suspect this is due to the test runner on wpt.fyi, as running the
tests locally, or in a live Chrome browser, does not exhibit the
issue. See web-platform-tests/wpt#33590
<https://github.com/web-platform-tests/wpt/issues/33590>.
Flag name
NavigationApi
Requires code in //chrome?
False
Tracking bug
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1183545
<https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1183545>
Launch bug
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1252954
<https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1252954>
Measurement
https://chromestatus.com/metrics/feature/timeline/popularity/4056
<https://chromestatus.com/metrics/feature/timeline/popularity/4056>
Non-OSS dependencies
Does the feature depend on any code or APIs outside the Chromium open
source repository and its open-source dependencies to function?
No.
Sample links
https://gigantic-honored-octagon.glitch.me/
<https://gigantic-honored-octagon.glitch.me/>
https://selective-heliotrope-dumpling.glitch.me/
<https://selective-heliotrope-dumpling.glitch.me/>
Estimated milestones
We plan to land this API in M102.
Link to entry on the Chrome Platform Status
https://chromestatus.com/feature/6232287446302720
<https://chromestatus.com/feature/6232287446302720>
Links to previous Intent discussions
Intent to Prototype
<https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/blink-dev/c/R1D5xYccqb0/m/8ukfzdVSAgAJ>
Intent to Experiment
<https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/blink-dev/c/ki__L-IiR0Q/m/rG3OgSkKBQAJ>
This intent message was generated by Chrome Platform Status
<https://chromestatus.com/>and then cleaned up a good bit.
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