Clipboard handling (was: Re: [idn] Debunking the ACE myth)

[Martin Duerst <duerst@w3.org>]

At 11:52 01/07/19 +0200, Patrik F$BgM(Btstr$B‹N(B wrote:
>In the IDNA proposal we have specified that an application which handle
>IDNA (like you seem to say that the browser is) only support IDNA if also
>the content of the clipboard is converted to ACE before the domainname is
>passed to other applications (which doesn't handle IDNA/ACE solution).

The clipboard doesn't have any protocol to distinguish whether the
target will be IDNA-enabled or not. [Most clipboards now have mechanisms
to distinguish the encoding, but ACE won't work with that. It's also
possible to create new clipboard categories, but again old applications
won't pick that up.]

Of course, IDNA could require that the clipboard is always in ACE,
but then imagine the following: User A sees a cool website, and
copies the address (mostly a domain name) into a mail to user B.
The paste operation will suddenly show some random garbage rather
than the actual address. The user will retry the cut/paste a few
more times, with the same result. It will then decide that the
browser or the mailer, or both, are buggy, and will type in the
address by hand.

Also, assume that the clipboard is tagged and that the receiving
mailer actually gets the ace and understands it. Should that then
go into the mail body as characters, as the user expects? Or would
idna prescribe that it goes there as ace? Do we want idna to require
behavior that users will clearly see as buggy and not accept, and
that therefore reasonable implementers won't implement? And if
we take the napkin as another kind of clipboard, is there a way
to get the user to somehow change the things she sees to ACE?
Is this what we are working on this effort for? In my eyes,
clearly not.

By the way, what if user B receives the web address in characters
(rather than ace)? Well, they'll put it into their browser, and
it will either work or not. If it doesn't work, they'll blame the
browser. They may find out that they have to upgrade if they want
this functionality. To most, it should not be too difficult to
understand that to make browsers work with non-ASCII addresses
where they have up to now only worked with ascii addresses needs
some change somewhere. It's definitely much easier to understand
than the clipbord bug, and it's something that users will have
to learn anyway, *whatever approach we take*.

So my proposal would be: Don't try to be too intelligent with
the clipboard.

Regards,   Martin.