Overview

User Problem

When browsing the web, the user's primary interest is to be able to consume the requested content as rendered by the browser. Sometimes a page can contain content (or links to content) that can not be displayed as images or text. This content may be interesting to the user, but it can be hard for them to get access to it. For example:

• microformats
• microsummary definitions
• links to multimedia files
• documents
• <link rel> tags that point to things like RSS files
• things we can't predict

Solution: Notification Area Framework

A framework will be provided that provides a mechanism for creating an area used to notify the user when a certain type of content is detected in a page. This notification area will be interactive, allowing a user to instruct the browser to handle or process this content appropriately.

Sample Use Case

A user has installed an extension that detects the hCard microsummary. When the user browses to a page with this type of content, an icon will appear with a tooltip that displays the number of hCard microsummaries found on the page. Clicking on the icon will import the resource and pass it to the system address book.

Similary, hCal micosummary events could trigger a calendar icon.

A mockup of this example is below:

Design Specification

The framework should provide an API that can be used to specify:

• the element to be rendered when the content is discovered
• the location for the element to be rendered (URL bar or Status Bar)
• when to change the state of the element
• the function to be called when the user interacts with the element