Paul Irish

Yehuda Katz and I recently asked this question on Twitter.

We're very interested in seeing web browsers advance and implement the interests of web developers.

We got a great response (230+ responses). After a triage of the responses, we narrowed down things to a hitlist that jumped out as having no immediate solution and would be great for the platform:

• flash capturing keyboard events, cursor
• WYSIWYG form element
• inset text shadow
• css blend modes
  • usecase: image i want to tint on hover
• Why CORS requires a preflight with cookies disabled
• being able to verify the content sent was the content delivered. Probably via headers & apis useful when deploying for mobile/roaming use or in corporate networks when behind proxies.
• Text Flow or caret(Position/Range)FromPoint
• A unified and publicized set of selectors for styling the shadow dom of input/select/etc. elements
• a way to manipulate asset request urls with js on the client before they go out (for serving responsive imgs, etc).
  • or media query attributes on image tags
• UIKit for Javascript.
  • Native UI bindings to JS that remove overhead and layers of HTML+DOM in the way. Sony's Trilithium did this by binding HW accelerated scene graph, ala Core Animation. see also playstation webapp
• render a DOM element to canvas, webgl
• DirectWrite in all browsers on all platforms.
• simulate keyboard and CLICK events
• a base tag for CSS
• Filesystem API limitation: IDE cant save files back to disk in original location
• XHR2
• fragment.innerHTML

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There are a lot more where that came from. A few people wanted to see all the responses… So.. here you are. :)

Right now they are partially categorized. I'd love your help with that..Thank you SO much to rworth and evan, who organized this list. Awesome :)

Broad and Sweeping

• a fundamental rethinking of the DOM would be a good start. ~blrandel
• Get rid of HTML. Make web JavaScript/CSS driven. ~nextinterfaces
• the standards process ~sethladd
• Browsers suck. Give us a VM that lets us not care about the browser. ~rxgx
• the “feature” that allows browsers to render bad/poorly formed HTML. I want that fixed please. ~durple
• In a perfect world I’d say ditch the DOM and give me a real displaylist-style interface, with a consistent composite architecture. ~awebneck
• consistent implementation of standards across browsers. ~BrettBearce
• performance ~mislav
• Should be ilegal to release a browser that doesn’t accomplish all the w3c standards ~FedePaterno
• web page cloud pre render. Then pipe one asset to the browser. :-) ~halfcube
• create something that makes ads suck less and do not blocking my page ~jaydson

Just Everything, all of it, and then some

• all HTML5 features supported by all browsers. ~chrisreister
• full html5/css3 support cross browser and signed off specs! #inaperfectworld ~Japhex
• Better support for html5 and css3 (all browsers and platforms) = less hacks, less vendor prefixes, less js = happier life :) ~rodrigonoales

IE & Mixed Browser Support

• Can I say “IE”? Or is that joke too overdone already? ~coreyschram
• as usual, IE is holding everything up. I’d like wide support for SVG today. ~nathan_vaughn
• other browsers to keep up the speed of Chrome’s implementation of standards and to auto-update to latest version ~illyriad
• force update IE. ~Fallion
• An alternative to animated gifs (apng)! FOR GOD’S SAKE!! ~TechBobOmb
• fast upgrade cycle for IE comparable to Chrome’s excellent model, and the dropping of compatibility modes going forwards ~ffub
• Add support for data:image/png;base64, … to IE6/7. ~ndorfin
• sorry, release schedule != update strategy; the latter is what I meant to say. Resubmitting… ~jswartwood
• IE’s update strategy. Most important feature to add to the Web is an ability to use feature X in reasonable time. ~jswartwood
• how many people answered with IE? ~omarqureshi
• Legacy Internet Explorers. Patch them all to autoupdate to IE9+ or a third party engine. ~joegaffey
• i’d fix the ‘Microsoft having a browser’ bug ~shanecarmody
• oh yeah ie7,8,9 ~negrond
• ie6 ~negrond
• Advanced CSS3 selectors in IE7 and 8. If I had to choose one it would be nth-child. ~Chris_Krammer
• if I had the chance to fix one it would be to get rid of IE. :) ~markbates
• IE ~samullen
• One browser bug? It’s the one people refer to as “Internet Explorer.” It’s a notorious bug. Evil bug. ~rerouse
• the IE self destruct button! ~jeremywoertink
• the complete removal of ie 6 and upgrade of everybody to modern browsers ~Mark_Kellett
• IE6-8 ~manufaktor
• am I allowed to classify everything < IE 10 as a bug? ~chrisdarroch
• Can the bug be ie? ~bbommarito
• legacy browsers! And all browsers which don’t auto update ~stefanpenner
• And of course a forceful auto-update of all IE installations to version 9 :) ~craigpatik
• frequent & transparent update for all browsers like Chrome, more coherence on supported features across browsers ~xeppelin
• the one browser bug would be to eliminate all versions of IE. ~stash_tray
• Internet Explorer. ‘nuff said. ~aviraldg
• Auto upgrade for every browser. ~ojohnnyo
• regular silent automatic delta updates. ~simbolo
• Bug fix: Android browser. ~kylebarrow
• automatic Chrome-like updates (along with actual updates) for IE…? #nevergonnahappen ~alexrussell101
• Does killing all IE below 8 count? ;) ~ryanolson
• I’d add a feature to Chrome that “accidentally” detects IE as a virus and deletes it from the user’s machine. ~wmbenedetto
• chrome! ~JomGapuz
• That’s easy … it’s called Internet Explorer #abug ~trymbill
• An easier way to communicate with databases? and microsoft deprecate IE6 & 7. ~Tsouloftas
• Internet Explorer retroactively updating itself ~MyHeroDevon
• automatic updates for all browsers (ie like chrome). rate of innovation would skyrocket ~smartalec43
• a browser on Android that auto-updates ~boblet
• Browser bug to fix? I’d say, make every browser with out-of-date rendering instantly bitch-slap the user until they upgrade. ~J6M8
• to that end, mobile web browsers have terrible documentation on what features they support/don’t support. ~bcardarella
• Silent auto updates for IE. If only there were a way to cut that half life… #webdeveloperheaven ~josiahsprague
• I suppose IE is the main reason For not improving my websites. ~gerherz
• Desktop, the bug I’d like fixed is “IE” ~ljharb
• Crossbrowsing for christ sick! I wish I can see one day all browsers rendering the sites in the exactly same way once for all! ~FedePaterno
• I would fix IE6 so it would automatically crash itself as soon as anyone decided to open it. ~adamholwerda
• Can Internet Explorer be considered a bug or feature I’d like to improve… aka eliminate? ~JtheBruce
• Android is woefully behind desktop Chrome. ~andybastable
• “the one browser bug” = Android. ~danmux
• Decent HW rendering in Android please ~danmux

Authentication / Identity / Crypto

• identity. I hate having to create a username and password. ~sethladd
• Integrated browser authentication. When’s the last time you logged in to a native app? ~madeofcode
• Identity, in a way that’s comprehensible and controllable by the user. ~johnjoseph
• And w3.org/2011/identity-… will be a great advance too ~cbullokles
• I wish I didn’t have to handle identity and SSL. Let my users sign in with existing credentials, and an assurance of encryption. ~abackstrom
• a full crypto & authentication stack ~jarrednicholls
• Add SSL over HTTP (instead of HTTP over SSL) to handle Certificate-based authentication in the application instead of the web server ~genezys
• secure storage for things like OAuth keys (no more proxies needed) ~manuel

Browser Testing

• A better way to test across browsers and browser versions. ~jacelevine

Development tools

• Better memory debugging tools. Like YourKit for JavaScript ~sethladd
• i’d say a built-in vim-style code editor w/ git hooks. maybe… ~csanz
• saving changes (js,html,css) made thru google chrome dev tool/firebug directly back into the codebase would be cool. ~4mo1
• an ssh client integrated into google chrome ~travisglines
• ability to debug CoffeeScript in the browser would have high impact (ideally with IDE/editor integration during debugging) ~ltackmann
• Merge firebug’s realtime CSS editor with chrome developer tools ~danielcgold
• combine the IDE and the browser. ~jwaltonmedia
• Summary of my position — improved native development experience over features that I haven’t imagined yet :) ~justinfrench
• I’ve been making use of the 3D CSS3 box model inspector in Dev Tools for a heavy interactive site. Godsend. Thank you dude ~joecritchley
• a better developer tools for IE, remote debugging for iPad ~mohsen__
• something that will fill in a form while I’m testing client side validation, checkout, etc. ~jwaltonmedia
• UIKit for JavaScript. ~sandofsky
• And a built-in bandwidth throttler / slow-mo mode. ~kpk

Languages

• I want a new client language. I’d love to see browsers switch to bytecode that we can compile other languages down to. ~michael_tomer
• Browsers that can be scripted in languages other than Javascript. (I know, Native Client is attempting this). ~suranyami
• The “Browser VM” should allow us to have multiple language implementations. An expressive bytecode, not minimized JavaScript. ~twcrone
• a VM one layer below JS (ex, LLVM).. to allow us to start innovating languages that run in the browser. JS is not the end all. ~igrigorik
• JavaScript always, everywhere. Whatever extra security browsers need to release, so devs can rely on JS always being there. ~webandy
• the lack of multiple mature programming language inside the browser environment. ~trek
• Ruby as a scripting language ~elado
• Sass and Coffeescript built into a browser ~anthonyshort

Language Features

• a way to know if a JavaScript function is actually meant to return something even if this return value is ‘undefined’. ~_sebastienp
• would love if all browsers supported noSuchMethod for some elegant script solutions. ~KaptajnKold
• If we could actually use some of the new Javascript features… ~nicobrevin
• Garbage collection. ~jayarjo
• operator overloading in #js would ease peoples’ lives when working on gfx stuff ~philogb
• Actually fixing altering any built in object’s .prototype in general doesn’t do horrible things, notably DOM objects. ~Rory_O
• Fixing Object.prototype erik.eae.net/archives/2005/… ~Rory_O
• Support for Javascript versions > 1.5 in Chrome and Safari. Specifically: I want to use generators and iterators. ~jonemo
• decoupling JS parsing from load ~derSchepp

Media

• Have the ability to pause/mute all media in all other tabs. ex: Mute google music/pandora tab when I hit play on a youtube vid. ~JoeSloth
• a solid audio api especially on mobile browsers would be great. Esp. for gaming :) ~wemakedotcoms
• Easily HTML5 Video and Audio at the moment. ~webfella
• audio and video input and encoding. ~dshaw
• more audio/video codecs built in ~masterkain
• i’ll go with html5 audio and video also… ~rguarilha
• also being able to know how many simultaneous HTML5 Audio objects you support in the current platform would be great. ~Fokker680
• If talking about Chrome, video masking with overflow hidden. ~gerherz
• the state of video delivery in and across the browsers is still quite sad. but not an individual browser issue per se. ~jerememonteau
• Good audio support for mobile browsers. ~andybastable

HTML5 Forms

• universal support for styleable input types (date/time/range/etc) ~franksvalli
• A rock solid native WYSIWYG form element. With so much content dev being done online, this is an area that seems really behind. ~reinink
• file uploads need rethinking. ~sikander

DOM

• a “Create” event launched when a new dom node is inserted ~JohnHackworth
• Quietly fail and move on when calling a method on a non-existent object : doc.getElementById(“does-not-exist”).innerHTML = … ~craigpatik

Keyboard

• Consistent handling of keypress/keydown events across browsers and OSes would be killer. ~pyrolupus

Mouse / Touch

• gesture events like swipes and flicks built-in as DOM events ~manuel
• doing touch without listening to three events for each gesture ~mohsen__
• now that comes from a cat avatar: an element that catches the mouse would be awesome for games or panorama viewer ~Flexi23

Device input

• Media Capture API! 21st century, and we are still limited to the text-only input on the web! ~matas_petrikas
• Access to the FS, to the devices (camera, sensors, readers, scaners…), direct access to the GPU (3D and complex calculations) ~gandazgul
• Device APIs. Accelerometer, camera, contacts, etc. ~filmaj
• Access to device capabilities from a website. gps, gyro,etc. ~ivanmarcin
• it will never happen, but support for more native functionality like file system, camera, etc… on mobile ~bcardarella
• Safe, sandboxed way to communicate with user’s hardware (GPU, filesystem, camera, etc.)—but that’s already on the way. ~valueof
• <input type="voice"> and <input type="webcam"> ~TimoKissing
• oh, also, device access! shouldn’t need flash to get to the camera and mic. ~jerememonteau
• device api, the use cases increases significantly on mobile . ~vivianli
• w3.org/2009/dap/ ~jamespearce
• Device APIs. ~jamespearce
• Mobile, file inputs = camera access ~ljharb

Flash

• Inconsistent keyboard trap issues, often by Flash content. Causes accessibility issues and annoys me no end – when in a YouTube video in Firefox, ctrl+t\ctrl+w no longer work for closing\creating tabs, and focus gets stuck in player ~joechidzik

CSS

• Ah, forgot something veeeery important: @viewport! ~derSchepp
• if CSS could do math. Ex) height: 100% – 20px; ~justindross
• I’d like css files to have a ‘root’ variable where you could set the home directory. ~davidrhoden
• Implementation of CSS Paged Media. To me this seems to be the missing link of modern technology. ~Rene_Kriest
• a way to disable, or set the device orientation. PLEASE. We need that. ~Fokker680
• background image rendering in firefox. I dislike how it needs either a or text to start rendering the image. ~joshsager
• CSS Filters ~derSchepp
• an adaptive image file format. ~derSchepp
• media queries attrs on base/img tags. Will enable downloading smaller images for smaller screens. ~yoavweiss
• a way to manipulate asset request urls with js on the client before they go out (for serving responsive imgs, etc). …which already worked until a couple months ago when browser img prefetching became more aggressive. ~scottjehl
• The one annoying me at the moment is the landscape rotation bug in Mobile Safari: tinyurl.com/5sr7qkm ~Pipsqueaks

Styling

• CSS blendmodes. div{blendmode:’overlay’} but also div{background:’multiply’ rgba(0,0,0,.3)} + for div{color:’add’ #fff} ~mknol
• css blend modes ~waynethebrain
• blending modes. Like multiply/overlay/etc in PS. ~gb
• Full support for @ page w3.org/TR/CSS2/page.h… ~sanbeiji
• I’d fix pixel overflow & underflow in IE Chrome & Safari. ~jon_neal
• this would for me be to not use curvycorners js hacks to get rounded borders to work in IE ~Iclevettdesigns
• multiple background images. ~Iclevettdesigns
• A unified and publicized set of selectors for styling the shadow dom of input/select/etc. elements ~JasonWyatt
• I’d like CSS to have an inherit:none feature, especially helpful when you’re inheriting from styles you have no control over. ~JayDWhiting

Text

• text-stretch. :) ~jonas_lund
• Proper text anti-aliasing on Chrome. Large type looks awful. Note: IE and FF have this already. ~andybastable
• Text Flow or caret(Position/Range)FromPoint. I’ve spent weeks on columns, text flow, and non-contenteditable wysiwyg, etc. ~grayrest
• Give me inset text-shadows in all browsers and proper edge antialiasing in Chrome and I’m all yours. ~matthewmorek
• There is some small bug with text sometimes (become lighter a bit, when canvas is loaded to that page). ~slobodan_
• Kerning and consistent type anti-aliasing across all platforms :) ~endtwist
• DirectWrite in all browsers on all platforms. ~H_FJ

Layout

• absolute centering of images etc in a given div would be one ~yemster
• I want rock solid layout. Like flexbox/ms-grid including vertical alignment. Basically, table-layout without the tables. ~b4nn0n
• Strong finalized layout system. Strong forms support for real apps. HTML CSS JS unreachable for the user. No way to modify pages ~fpiat
• better CSS layouts. I know it’s coming, not fast enough ~sethladd
• A real layout system :) ~natecavanaugh
• it shouldn’t be so difficult to build columns and vertically center things. Seriously why are these still problematic. ~nathan_vaughn
• layout. hands down. ~boblet
• Add sane CSS-based layouts to all browsers. ~jon_neal
• flexbox everywhere ~mislav
• Have css3 column-count and width work in all browsers, but revert to a stack in resolutions below multi-column width. ~J_Grimm_
• position:fixed and overflow:scroll on all desktop and mobile browsers would make my day ~prundin
• Vertical and “middle” float. I want to be able to put elements in the middle of other elements, horizontally and vertically. ~iliadraznin
• My #1 is a simply a better layout system. Flexbox = meh. ~roblifford
• a box model that programatically closer to an AS3 sprite ~darrownet
• display:table in IE6 ~SubtleGradient
• Mobile, position: fixed. ~ljharb

WYSIWYG / Native rich-text editor

• All contenteditable related madness: commands, generated HTML, and selection API ~jpscaletti
• more consistent and improved implementation of contenteditable. That would really improve and slim down web based editors. ~DannySorensen

Animation

• Broader hardware-acceleration coverage for the display layer. The richness of native mobile/flash is driven by unflinching 60fps. ~teej_m
• I want to stop repainting from flickering and screwing with my animations. ~tdreyno
• Bugfix: Hardware-accelerated DOM manipulation using translate3d on Android Browser. ~bniswe
• (smooth) #CSS3 animations for ALL browsers! ~AndrewHenderson
• transition/animate pseudo-elements! ~jacobdubail
• On Android. Hardware Accelerated CSS Transforms. ~edwk
• CSS transitions (they’re just slow and outclassed by javascript in terms of speed) ~thijsjacobs
• Decent HW rendering in Android please ~danmux

2d graphics / Canvas / SVG

• Acceleration/performance on SVG. Also think I found a leak with SVG in Chrome when tabs are hidden (but no repro yet). ~notmatt
• Faster drawing with 2d canvas context. ~monteslu
• There is some small bug with text sometimes (become lighter a bit, when canvas is loaded to that page). ~slobodan_
• Good Canvas support for mobile browsers. ~andybastable
• canvas.drawWindow. Don’t even see why it should be restricted to extensions (except in the case of cross domain content) ~bgrins
• Sony’s Trilithium did this by binding HW accelerated scene graph, ala Core Animation. satine.org/archives/2011/… ~charlietuna

3d graphics / WebGL

• compressed textures for webgl, and everything else people already said. ~sethladd
• WebGL support in IE would change a lot when it comes to browser games. For 3D as well as 2D. ~ippalix
• Good WebGL support for mobile browsers. ~andybastable

Web Storage

• Making localStorage infinite size ~nikolatankovic
• Web storage and offline use is a huge mess, even on latest gecko/webkit ~alexbosworth

History

• full acceptance of the History API & Ajax. It’s all about user experience. ~Scottblew
• Make browsers understand previous states so that Ajax and back-btn & bookmaring can be implemented easier/seamlessly. ~vmasto

File API

• Not easy but (until we’re all cloud based), a rich and safe way to write webapps to handle local files too crbug.com/47416 That would let us write webapps to replace all sorts of things that currently have to be desktop apps ~schmerg
• all browsers need stable and consistent support of the JS File API ~MeltingIce
• integration with the desktop and OS (file API is one of the first things) ~dnagir

File Uploads

• resumable, managed, async browser based file uploads ~tilsammans

Offline / App Cache

• a better app cache API (with improved debugging) stevesouders.com/blog/2011/10/0… ~alex_gibson
• Web storage and offline use is a huge mess, even on latest gecko/webkit ~alexbosworth
• app cache that doesn’t suck. ~miketaylr
• Fix network-connection JS events:we have online/offline for hardware but what about netonline/netoffline for Inet traffic tests? ~adamrmcd
• I’m going to +1 application cache. @SlexAxton @miketaylr & @julio_ody ~benschwarz
• that the offline HTML5 API would give a lot more control over the cache. Not sure that’s what you asked though ~julio_ody
• Firefoxes app cache permission requester ~derSchepp

Communication and Web Sockets

• I’d vote for some way to do P2P connections, or at least some way of opening arbitrary ports in some secure, sandboxed way. ~rakesh314
• Websockets… ~okinsey
• Secure websockets on all browsers will make creating web apps easier. That is a dream right now. ~chrisreister
• Uniform websocket support across all browsers. ~clofresh
• Cross domain xhr (as a new session, without the cookies of the original site) ~elado
• cross domain xhr, but creating a new session and not sending the original cookies. could save jsonp/proxies. ~elado
• universal support of push notifications without the browser being open. ~ChrisLove
• not The Single Bug, but here’s one: being able to verify the content sent was the content delivered. Probably via headers & apis. Useful when deploying for mobile/roaming use or in corporate networks when behind proxies. ~rem
• better support for XHR-2 on mobile. iOS partially supports but barely. in the case of the XHR-2 stuff it replaces the API, with a much less functional API on iOS :( PhoneGap is making the effort, but it needs to act as a polyfill and not a replacement API ~bcardarella
• cross domain xhr, but creating a new session and not sending the original cookies. could save jsonp/proxies. ~elado
• if could ask for my last gift to the three wise men I’d like peer to peer communication, with WebRTC is close to be here ~cbullokles

Desktop / OS Integration

• more OS integrations (like file upload from iOS, access to camera, cross-platform dragdrop files) ~mislav
• fullscreen maybe ~slobodan_
• integration with the desktop and OS (file API is one of the first things) ~dnagir
• On the desktop: Intents (cross app integration). ~edwk

Widgets

• Begin supporting the W3C Widget spec. ~mwbrooks
• I really like the support to w3c widgets included in opera. It helps to package web applications as normal apps ~cbullokles
• Greater steps towards W3C Widgets ~mwbrooks
• better encapsulation similar to Mozillas XUL widgets seems like a big one. ~blrandel

Browser Extensions

• also actual cross-browser extensions APIs and packaging while you’re handing out unicorn lollipops. ~miketaylr

Browser UI (App-land)

• Modifying native context menu. ~JanKuca
• Access to system-level elements. Buttons, contextual menu, etc. Why can my web app look more like a desktop app? ~sternmeyer
• Firefox’s rogue input styling that differs from all other browsers. Inability to style input elements in general in Firefox. ~taitems

Browser UI (User-land)

• I usually close browser tabs with shortcuts, the “x”, is actually a hazard for me. Thankfullly there’s command-shift-T to reopen. ~ckundo
• Showing which of the 30 tabs I have open just started playing that song everyone hates, with some kind of icon/colour change? ~josscrowcroft
• an option to freeze all non-active tabs and browser instances to gain performance and a disruption free browsing experience ~tuskali

Browser features (out of scope)

• a bit late but still, id include in every browser a feature like “safari reader” (not as extension) and make width resizeable ~askoth
• not having web inspector’s CSS panel jump to the top of the declaration every time I double-click a rule to make a live change. ~mklickman
• file:/// in Chrome. But it would never get accepted :p ~me1000
• better bookmarking. Implement thematic and context sensitive trails the way Vannevar Bush envisioned. ~mik3cap
• And a built-in bandwidth throttler / slow-mo mode. ~kpk

Ummmm

• is this a trick question? ~webandy
• a troll fix ~mynameiscolin
• sprinkles! ~jeanniev
• counterweights to balance out the missing goats ~anthonydispezio
• I would like Backbone.js to be built-in. Just kidding. ~julio_ody
• Is this question partially inspired by nczonline.net/blog/2011/10/0…? ~roblifford
• A feature that allows browsers to detect duplicate @wycats tweets. ~jamespearce

Paul Irish front-end development