PSA: Web MIDI Permissions Prompt Change

[Ajay Rahatekar]

Contact emails

mjwi...@chromium.org, sinaf...@chromium.org, hong...@chromium.org

Specification

https://www.w3.org/TR/webmidi/#requestmidiaccess

Summary

This change will require users to grant permission before they can use the Web MIDI API. Currently, users must explicitly grant permission to use SysEx messages with the Web MIDI API. With this change, users will need to grant a single permission to use the Web MIDI API and SysEx support. Both permissions will be requested in a bundled permission prompt.

Blink component

Blink>WebMIDI

Search tags

MIDI, SysEx

Risks

Firefox already has a permissions prompt on Web MIDI API. We are working with known partners and plan on socializing this Chromium change.

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

Yes

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

No

Requires code in //chrome?

False

Tracking bug

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1420307

Estimated milestones

We hope to ship this in Q2 2023.

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/5087054662205440

This intent message was generated by Chrome Platform Status.

[Ajay Rahatekar]

A correction. The permission prompt will not be released on Webview at this time. This is planned for to be revisited later.

[Ajay Rahatekar]

This feature is planned to ship in M118.

[Ajay Rahatekar]

This feature is now planned to ship in M121.

[Alex Russell]

What's the rationale for this change? Is it documented anywhere? I don't see an Explainer linked.

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[Michael Wilson]

In case you were asking about the permissions prompt change instead of the schedule change:

This is not an API change and that's why we are sending out a PSA instead of an intent. The nature of the permission prompt change is described in the Chromestatus entry.

Please let me know if you have more questions.

Best,

Michael

On Tue, Oct 17, 2023 at 3:11 PM Michael Wilson <mjwi...@chromium.org> wrote:

Hi Alex,

We've been having trouble finishing up the engineering work, hence the delay.  I'm trying to make some workflow adjustments now.

Best,

Michael

[Michael Wilson]

Hi Alex,

We've been having trouble finishing up the engineering work, hence the delay.  I'm trying to make some workflow adjustments now.

Best,

Michael

On Tue, Oct 17, 2023 at 2:30 PM Alex Russell <sligh...@chromium.org> wrote:

[Hongchan Choi]

Hello Alex,

What's the rationale for this change?

There have been several reported problems around Web MIDI API's drive-by access to client MIDI devices. (crbug, blog post) To address this problem, the Audio WG decided to place an explicit permission on the general MIDI API access. (spec) Originally, the explicit permission was only required for the advanced MIDI usage (e.g. system exclusive message) in Chrome, but the completion of this work will expand the scope of the permission even to the regular MIDI API usage.

 

Is it documented anywhere? I don't see an Explainer linked.

As Michael pointed out, we are not sure if this work requires an explainer since a) FireFox already implemented with a wider permission per the spec and b) this work does not involve API changes. We can expand the Chrome Status entry to include more context and rationale if that's helpful.

Best,

Hongchan

[Alex Russell]

Thanks for the explanation. I was also unsure if this needs an intent, and my gut feeling is "no", except that it will be useful for this to get captured in docs and updates for developers.

In that spirit, LGTM1, and thanks for filing.

[Hongchan Choi]

Yes - we are thinking about publishing a short developer-facing article about Chrome's permission change when the implementation is ready.

Thanks Alex!

[Chris Harrelson]

LGTM2

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[Mike Taylor]

LGTM3 (if you need it...)

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