ISSUE-23

Key Indentifier Case

Should Key Identifiers prioritize uppercase characters

State:

CLOSED

Product:

DOM3 Events

Raised by:

Doug Schepers

Opened on:

2008-06-29

Description:

In the current draft of Key Identifiers, including the new algorithm wording, there is a bias toward uppercase characters.  Essentially, if a key is pressed that gives a character codepoint which is lowercase, for which there is an uppercase equivalent, the uppercase codepoint (or character) is returned instead.  What is the use case here?

Case is a peculiar feature of Latinate languages, and it's not clear that special-casing it makes it easier to make reliable script.  More reliable and flexible comparisons can be made easily; compare the following pseudocode snippets: 

// keyIdentifier reports only "Q", and forces all upper and lower case characters to the uppercase value
if ( evt.keyIdentifier == "Q" ) { ... }

// keyIdentifier reports both "Q" and "q", and allows authors to distinguish upper and lower case letters or lump them together, as desired
if ( evt.keyIdentifier.toLowerCase() == "q" ) { ... }

Converting to uppercase strikes me as needless legacy from keyCode/charCode.  Is there some pragmatic reason to force this casting?

Related Actions Items:

No related actions

Related emails:

1. Re: ISSUE-23 (Key Indentifier Case): Should Key Identifiers prioritize uppercase characters [DOM3 Events] (from andrewc@vicnet.net.au on 2008-06-30)
2. Re: ISSUE-23 (Key Indentifier Case): Should Key Identifiers prioritize uppercase characters [DOM3 Events] (from cam@mcc.id.au on 2008-06-30)
3. Re: ISSUE-23 (Key Indentifier Case): Should Key Identifiers prioritize uppercase characters [DOM3 Events] (from andrewc@vicnet.net.au on 2008-06-30)
4. Re: ISSUE-23 (Key Indentifier Case): Should Key Identifiers prioritize uppercase characters [DOM3 Events] (from cam@mcc.id.au on 2008-06-30)
5. Re: ISSUE-23 (Key Indentifier Case): Should Key Identifiers prioritize uppercase characters [DOM3 Events] (from andrewc@vicnet.net.au on 2008-06-30)
6. Re: ISSUE-23 (Key Indentifier Case): Should Key Identifiers prioritize uppercase characters [DOM3 Events] (from cam@mcc.id.au on 2008-06-30)
7. Re: ISSUE-23 (Key Indentifier Case): Should Key Identifiers prioritize uppercase characters [DOM3 Events] (from andrewc@vicnet.net.au on 2008-06-30)
8. Re: ISSUE-23 (Key Indentifier Case): Should Key Identifiers prioritize uppercase characters [DOM3 Events] (from cam@mcc.id.au on 2008-06-30)
9. Re: ISSUE-23 (Key Indentifier Case): Should Key Identifiers prioritize uppercase characters [DOM3 Events] (from timeless@gmail.com on 2008-06-30)
10. Re: ISSUE-23 (Key Indentifier Case): Should Key Identifiers prioritize uppercase characters [DOM3 Events] (from schepers@w3.org on 2008-06-29)
11. Re: ISSUE-23 (Key Indentifier Case): Should Key Identifiers prioritize uppercase characters [DOM3 Events] (from cam@mcc.id.au on 2008-06-29)
12. ISSUE-23 (Key Indentifier Case): Should Key Identifiers prioritize uppercase characters [DOM3 Events] (from sysbot+tracker@w3.org on 2008-06-29)

Related notes:

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