camera://
By glazou on Wednesday 24 September 2008, 07:55 - Mozilla - Permalink
Future of the Web... Brad Lassey had a really great idea for Fennec, and I think it should hit all browsers, not only mobile browsers. Just allow me to recommend the following:
- allow <input type="camera"> and camera:// (or whatever it becomes but type="camera" or type="webcam" seems fine to me) in Firefox, make it reach HTML5 spec
- make sure the user sees an alert or notification asking him/her if he/she's ok to allow the browser (and the visited web site) to have access to the webcam; "allow this web page to use my webcam", "always allow this web page to use my webcam", "never allow this web page to use my webcam"; needs a new dialog with a list so the user can change his/her choices if needed.
- probably make the value of that <input> element be a data URL.
Really a great idea, wow I really want this in all browsers.
Comments
What's the point of seeing your own webcam in your own browser?
Obvious use case: Upload images directly from your camera to a website, without taking the time to save it, then open a file dialog in the browser to locate it.
it should be:
<input type=picture>
and
<input type=video>
if the user or agent want to provide access to a camera or video camera, that's the choice of the user or agent. if the user chooses to use some other media instead of a live picture, that should be ok too.
never force on the world an implementation detail which harms the userspace.
Actually it's already part of HTML4, let alone HTML5! The spec uses <input type="file" accept="image/*"> (or e.g. image/png if you want to control the format).
You can also imagine dictating a google search using <input type="file" accept="audio/*">, or using a webcam with <input type="file" accept="video/*">. What a benefit for accessibility!