Intent to Ship: NavigationActivation

Noam Rosenthal

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Jan 26, 2024, 4:27:50 AMJan 26

to blink-dev

Summary

navigation.activation stores state about when the current Document was activated (e.g., when it was initialized, or restored from the back/forward cache).

Blink component

Blink>History

TAG review

https://github.com/w3ctag/design-reviews/issues/921

TAG review status

Issues addressed

Risks

Interoperability and Compatibility

None

Gecko: Positive (https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/928)

WebKit: No signal (https://github.com/WebKit/standards-positions/issues/282)

Web developers: Positive

Other signals:

Security

This is a cross-document (navigation) feature, so designing it we needed to take care of cross-origin navigation related risks. Since `navigation.activation` is part of the navigation API, it uses the same semantics and protections. We only expose things that are otherwise exposed by the navigation API or in other means.

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?

None

Debuggability

None

Will this feature be supported on all six Blink platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, ChromeOS, Android, and Android WebView)?

Yes

Is this feature fully tested by web-platform-tests?

Yes

https://wpt.fyi/results/navigation-api/navigation-activation?label=master&label=experimental&aligned&q=navigation%20activation

Flag name on chrome://flags

NavigationActivation

Finch feature name

None

Non-finch justification

It's a web-API, exposing it gradually doesn't make sense.

Requires code in //chrome?

False

Estimated milestones

Shipping on desktop

123

Shipping on Android

123

Shipping on WebView

123

Shipping on WebView

123

Anticipated spec changes

Open questions about a feature may be a source of future web compat or interop issues. Please list open issues (e.g. links to known github issues in the project for the feature specification) whose resolution may introduce web compat/interop risk (e.g., changing to naming or structure of the API in a non-backward-compatible way).

None

Link to entry on the Chrome Platform Status

https://chromestatus.com/feature/5076557983121408

Links to previous Intent discussions

Intent to prototype: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/CACf%3D2LJa-_9cEjMU3Ds660KmW0u_G_M9S1Ah-14gAfk9Qhrp2g%40mail.gmail.com

This intent message was generated by Chrome Platform Status.

Vladimir Levin

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Jan 26, 2024, 12:15:28 PMJan 26

to Noam Rosenthal, blink-dev

I'm always unsure about this, but I believe "Finch feature name" is the flag you'd put in runtime_enabled_features.json5. It can be used by Finch as a kill-switch in case the feature causes some regression in the wild. For this feature, the chrome:://flags flag isn't there though (correct me if I'm wrong)

Requires code in //chrome?
False

Estimated milestones
Shipping on desktop 123
Shipping on Android 123
Shipping on WebView 123
Shipping on WebView 123

Anticipated spec changes
Open questions about a feature may be a source of future web compat or interop issues. Please list open issues (e.g. links to known github issues in the project for the feature specification) whose resolution may introduce web compat/interop risk (e.g., changing to naming or structure of the API in a non-backward-compatible way).
None

Link to entry on the Chrome Platform Status
https://chromestatus.com/feature/5076557983121408

Links to previous Intent discussions
Intent to prototype: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/CACf%3D2LJa-_9cEjMU3Ds660KmW0u_G_M9S1Ah-14gAfk9Qhrp2g%40mail.gmail.com

This intent message was generated by Chrome Platform Status.

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Noam Rosenthal

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Jan 29, 2024, 2:44:21 AMJan 29

to blink-dev, Vladimir Levin, blink-dev, Noam Rosenthal

On Friday, January 26, 2024 at 5:15:28 PM UTC Vladimir Levin wrote:

On Fri, Jan 26, 2024 at 4:27 AM Noam Rosenthal <nrose...@chromium.org> wrote:

Contact emailsjap...@chromium.org, nrose...@chromium.org

Explainerhttps://github.com/WICG/view-transitions/blob/main/navigation-activation-explainer.md

Specificationhttps://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/nav-history-apis.html#navigation-activation-interface

Summary
navigation.activation stores state about when the current Document was activated (e.g., when it was initialized, or restored from the back/forward cache).

Blink componentBlink>History

TAG reviewhttps://github.com/w3ctag/design-reviews/issues/921

TAG review statusIssues addressed

Risks

Interoperability and Compatibility
None

Gecko: Positive (https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/928)

WebKit: No signal (https://github.com/WebKit/standards-positions/issues/282)

Web developers: Positive

Other signals:

Security
This is a cross-document (navigation) feature, so designing it we needed to take care of cross-origin navigation related risks. Since `navigation.activation` is part of the navigation API, it uses the same semantics and protections. We only expose things that are otherwise exposed by the navigation API or in other means.

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?
None

Debuggability
None

Will this feature be supported on all six Blink platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, ChromeOS, Android, and Android WebView)?Yes

Is this feature fully tested by web-platform-tests?Yes
https://wpt.fyi/results/navigation-api/navigation-activation?label=master&label=experimental&aligned&q=navigation%20activation

Flag name on chrome://flagsNavigationActivation

Finch feature nameNone

Non-finch justification
It's a web-API, exposing it gradually doesn't make sense.

I'm always unsure about this, but I believe "Finch feature name" is the flag you'd put in runtime_enabled_features.json5. It can be used by Finch as a kill-switch in case the feature causes some regression in the wild. For this feature, the chrome:://flags flag isn't there though (correct me if I'm wrong)

According to these guidelines: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/main/third_party/blink/renderer/platform/RuntimeEnabledFeatures.md#guidelines-for-setting-feature-status

Finch + base:: features are used only for things that can cause compat issues, not so much for new web APIs.

I was following this guideline, if something else is required here I'd be happy to follow up.

Mike Taylor

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Jan 29, 2024, 8:30:28 AMJan 29

to Noam Rosenthal, blink-dev, Vladimir Levin, Noam Rosenthal

See https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/main/docs/flag_guarding_guidelines.md#when-is-a-flag-required. The new guidance (since Aug 2022) is to add a flag for ~mostly everything.

Noam Rosenthal

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Jan 29, 2024, 8:53:48 AMJan 29

to Mike Taylor, Noam Rosenthal, blink-dev, Vladimir Levin

Right, of course. But those are auto-generated from blink flags.

So, we do have a finch flag, with the same name (NavigationActivation). I've updated the entry. Sorry for the confusion.

Yoav Weiss (@Shopify)

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Jan 31, 2024, 11:00:45 AMJan 31

to blink-dev, Noam Rosenthal

LGTM1

On Friday, January 26, 2024 at 10:27:50 AM UTC+1 Noam Rosenthal wrote:

Contact emailsjap...@chromium.org, nrosenthal...@chromium.org

Explainerhttps://github.com/WICG/view-transitions/blob/main/navigation-activation-explainer.md

Specificationhttps://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/nav-history-apis.html#navigation-activation-interface

Summary
navigation.activation stores state about when the current Document was activated (e.g., when it was initialized, or restored from the back/forward cache).

I was confused by "when" here (as we already shipped activationStart). The explainer does a good job of explaining this though.

Blink componentBlink>History

TAG reviewhttps://github.com/w3ctag/design-reviews/issues/921

TAG review statusIssues addressed

Link to entry on the Chrome Platform Statushttps://chromestatus.com/feature/5076557983121408

Links to previous Intent discussionsIntent to prototype: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/CACf%3D2LJa-_9cEjMU3Ds660KmW0u_G_M9S1Ah-14gAfk9Qhrp2g%40mail.gmail.com

Chris Harrelson

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Jan 31, 2024, 11:53:43 AMJan 31

to Yoav Weiss (@Shopify), blink-dev, Noam Rosenthal

LGTM2

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Daniel Bratell

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Jan 31, 2024, 11:54:27 AMJan 31

to Chris Harrelson, Yoav Weiss (@Shopify), blink-dev, Noam Rosenthal

LGTM3

/Daniel

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/CAOMQ%2Bw8t7sXaQ%3DcGuQFV0bkHJZqYq4ewRNywdZcEWA_ECph0Qg%40mail.gmail.com.

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