

Bug 344618 - Implement input type="range" - jmitcheson
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=344618

======
gioele
Misleading title. Flamebait.

Mozilla devs have limited resources and they decided to tackle developing a
better DOM before adding new auxiliary features. How is this wrong?

The main comment says:

«On the DOM side, there is a major refactoring of the DOM based on WebIDL (bug
580070) going on. This will yield better conformance and I'm confident DOM
performance, likely security too I would guess.

Meanwhile, I agree, no new feature (like this bug) is being worked on. That's
unfortunate, but it's a matter of priority.»

They think that their efforts are better spent on DOM performance rather than
form sliders. We argue about that, but one has to accept that, in presence of
limited resources, one has to prioritise something.

~~~
shardling
Just to be clear, that wasn't a Mozilla employee commenting, so they won't
necessarily even have a good view of Mozilla's priorities.

------
Osmose
In case anyone decides that they want to register for Bugzilla and comment on
the bug itself about how they feel about priorities, please heed bz's comment
and take the discussion to a more appropriate (and probably more responsive)
area, like dev-planning[1] or dev-platform[2].

Bugs like this are meant to be mostly for technical discussion and aren't the
most effective way of getting attention around this kind've issue.

[1] <https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-planning>

[2] <https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform>

~~~
freehunter
Off topic: that "kind've" is interesting. It looks like a contraction, but it
saves no space over the normal "kind of". Is that just a personal
colloquialism of yours, or is it part of a regional thing, or...?

~~~
Evbn
It is a grammatical error.

~~~
freehunter
I've seen it used before, which is why I'm willing to give the benefit of the
doubt that it's possibly an evolutionary branch of the language. Being a
grammatical error is the obvious answer, but not always the correct one.

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overgard
Thinking about it, I don't think I've ever really had a reason to use a slider
on a web form. It'd be nice to have, I suppose.

To me implying that "HTML5 isn't a priority for mozilla" because they haven't
implemented a really marginal component is quite an exaggeration. I think
using bug reports to try to create pressure on developers is in this weird
grey area of stuff where it violates some sort of implicit social code of bug
reporting. (In short: it's sort of a passive aggressive move)

Having an opinion on what should prioritized is fine, but it should be
marketed as such, IE, make it a blog post or write an email or something
instead.

~~~
nitrogen
_Thinking about it, I don't think I've ever really had a reason to use a
slider on a web form._

I've been dying to have native sliders for ages. There are lots of user
interfaces to be made that have nothing to do with databases, CRUD, or social
networks. For example, sliders are particularly essential to
audio/video/lighting control and media editing UIs.

Yesterday's thinking will only solve yesterday's problems.

~~~
overgard
Sure. But there's a way to say "this would be awesome to have, here's all the
places I could use it" and ask politely versus "I'm going to make a public
display of this on a popular news site in order to pressure you into what I
want"

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shardling
The title here really needs to be changed. No one in the linked report
representing Mozilla says anything even close to that. The phrase "not a
priority" doesn't even appear on that page, so putting it in quotes is a bit
much!

------
MatthewPhillips
Is this bad? All browsers must have priorities. Is there a reason why
input[type="range"] should be a priority over the stuff they're working on?

~~~
ars
Mainly because it's high profile.

But also because it can't be used until it's been in browsers for a long long
time. So you need to get it in there early.

There is a HUGE lag time from when it's implemented to when it's usable.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
But that's true for all HTML5 features. I'm frankly glad that Mozilla has
prioritized stuff like IndexedDB (not yet in Safari or Opera, Chrome using an
outdated spec last I checked).

Unless there is a reason why input[type="range"] is more important than the
stuff they are working on, I don't think we can really complain. Mozilla
arguably has the fastest release cycle nowadays.

------
randomfool
It's a bummer since sliders are such a fundamental control.

When people must create their own:

* Implementations are more often than not sub-par.

* Implementations are inconsistent (will clicking off the thumb snap to the mouse or act as an increment?).

* There is no platform-native look & feel control (which should matter for any FF phone device, as they should want all apps to use a single slider implementation).

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eckyptang
I've noticed this as well without having to go near their bugzilla for
confirmation. It's not just the range control - it's pretty much everything.

This is one of the features that would stop me having to churn out literally
acres of JavaScript validation and normalising forms across different
browsers.

I mean even IE10 supports them now:
<http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/HTML5/Forms/default.html>

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Achshar
While i agree that it probably doesn't matter what gets priority from dev
prespective, i believe they should implement form stuff first because they are
(probably) easier to implement than a whole API that interacts pages with OS.
The devs who try out the simple to test input type range code are far more in
number than people who try out APIs. So they take less time and have more
users than apis.j cant see why they aren't higher in priority especially since
all other major browsers have atleast some kind of implimentation of it.

------
earnubs
Range inputs are one of those things that seem obvious but in practice aren't
that useful, in the grand scheme of things.

