[uf-discuss] Firefox 3 Javascript Semantic Data UI Control (was: Microformats and Firefox 3)

[Manu Sporny]

Dimitri Glazkov wrote:
> I really like the idea of allowing additional control over
> presentation via pseudo-classes, but I am worried that :target isn't
> quite right, at least if we follow the spec to the letter
> (http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-selectors/#target-pseudo), specifically
> since this pseudo-class is not dynamic and there may or may not be a
> fragment identifier on the microformat.

There is another option available. Songbird has released a specification
for a Javascript object that can be used to control some of the
functionality in the browser.

http://developer.songbirdnest.com/documentation/trunk/webpageapi/files/sbIRemotePlayer-idl.html

Operator/Firefox could provide something along the same lines to allow
publishers to disable the browser UI and provide their own via CSS.

Here's how it could work:

The SemanticDataUI object would be accessible, from Javascript, using
the “semanticDataUI” global variable attached to the currently loaded
document. A publisher could disable the semantic data UI in any browser
by running the following line of Javascript:

semanticDataUI.disableUI();

Users could control whether or not they allow web pages to disable the
Semantic Data UI. Most would probably allow web pages to disable the
semantic data UI.

Publishers could manually disable the Semantic Data UI and use CSS to
mark up their hCards, hCalendars, and hAudios.

This would give cross-browser UI control to both the users and the
publishers without having to do any CSS magic.

-- manu