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Carry over sticky activation for same-origin navs and traversals #11454

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Carry over sticky activation for same-origin navs and traversals #11454

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361b667
Carry over sticky activation for same-origin navs and traversals
domenic Jul 15, 2025
ad0e6b8
Simplify per code review, also for history
domenic Aug 20, 2025
fae6b36
Minor cleanups noticed while in the area
domenic Aug 22, 2025
3939d91
Carry it over during bfcache restoration
domenic Aug 22, 2025
7e5c107
Fix build oops
domenic Aug 22, 2025
be03fd6
Fix nits
domenic Sep 18, 2025
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Carry it over during bfcache restoration
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domenic committed Aug 22, 2025
commit 3939d915c4fe5989d7d4ac9ffafde2dae72ac6dd
42 changes: 33 additions & 9 deletions source
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Expand Up @@ -80223,7 +80223,8 @@ interface <dfn interface>VisibilityStateEntry</dfn> : <span>PerformanceEntry</sp
<p>This is <var>W</var>'s historical activation state, indicating whether the user has ever
interacted in <var>W</var>. It starts false, then changes to true (and never changes back to
false) when <var>W</var> gets the very first <span>activation notification</span>. It is also
carried over between windows for same-origin navigations and traversals.</p>
carried over between windows for same-origin navigations and traversals (including <a
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@smaug---- smaug---- Aug 21, 2025 •
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Hmm, is this quite right? If there is a bfcached page without sticky activation, I don't think the algorithms will set the flag on those window objects if another same origin window gets sticky activation. And I'm not sure what behavior we want there.

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@domenic domenic Aug 22, 2025

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You're right, that's a great catch! I think we should carry it over to same-origin bfcached documents too, to minimize differences between cases where the bfcache is hit vs. missed.

I'll add a line to the "reactivate" algorithm similar to the one I added to the "create and initialize a new Document" algorithm.

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This ended up being more annoying than I'd prefer, as threading things from the predecessor document to the new document seems to be surprisingly unusual. (In particular, if the browser plans to unload and destroy the previous document, we need to grab the state before it does that.)

I have a half-finished local branch with an alternate option, which, at the time we set sticky activation for one window, immediately tries to propagate it to all contiguous same-origin bfcached windows in the same navigable. But I realized that keeping track of "contiguous" would add a good amount of complexity (albeit only locally), and this probably would not be how implementations do it, so I stashed that.

Of course, there's a separate issue here where the whole user activation framework ignores the complexities of propagating the bit across processes, instead just letting people access the Window object from anywhere. That is fairly pervasive in the spec ecosystem though. (That is, although specs these days are relatively good about separating out processes, the rarer cases like this one where we need to propagate state so that it lives in multiple processes are all hand-waved. See w3c/ServiceWorker#1755 (comment) for more rambling.)

href="#note-user-activation-bfcache-carry-over">during reactivation from bfcache</a>).</p>
</dd>

<dt><dfn export>Transient activation</dfn></dt>
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -104900,6 +104901,15 @@ location.href = '#foo';</code></pre>
entries for the navigation API</span> given <var>navigable</var> and
<var>targetStep</var>.</p></li>

<li><p>Let <var>stickyActivationToCarryOver</var> be false.</p></li>

<li><p>If <var>displayedDocument</var>'s <span>relevant global object</span> has <span>sticky
activation</span>, and <var>displayDocument</var>'s <span
data-x="concept-document-origin">origin</span> is <span>same origin</span> with
<var>targetEntry</var>'s <span data-x="she-document">document</span>'s <span
data-x="concept-document-origin">origin</span>, then set <var>stickyActivationToCarryOver</var>
to true.</p></li>

<li>
<p>If <var>changingNavigableContinuation</var>'s <span
data-x="changing-nav-continuation-update-only">update-only</span> is true, or
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -104952,7 +104962,8 @@ location.href = '#foo';</code></pre>
<var>changingNavigableContinuation</var>'s <span
data-x="changing-nav-continuation-update-only">update-only</span>,
<var>scriptHistoryLength</var>, <var>scriptHistoryIndex</var>, <var>navigationType</var>,
<var>entriesForNavigationAPI</var>, and <var>previousEntry</var>.</p></li>
<var>entriesForNavigationAPI</var>, <var>previousEntry</var>, and
<var>stickyActivationToCarryOver</var>.</p></li>

<li><p>If <var>targetEntry</var>'s <span data-x="she-document">document</span> is equal to
<var>displayedDocument</var>, then perform <var>updateDocument</var>.</p></li>
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -105482,8 +105493,9 @@ location.href = '#foo';</code></pre>
<var>doNotReactivate</var>, integers <var>scriptHistoryLength</var> and
<var>scriptHistoryIndex</var>, <code>NavigationType</code>-or-null <var>navigationType</var>, an
optional <span>list</span> of <span data-x="session history entry">session history entries</span>
<var>entriesForNavigationAPI</var>, and an optional <span>session history entry</span>
<var>previousEntryForActivation</var>:</p>
<var>entriesForNavigationAPI</var>, an optional <span>session history entry</span>
<var>previousEntryForActivation</var>, and an optional boolean
<var>stickyActivationToCarryOver</var> (default false):</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Let <var>documentIsNew</var> be true if <var>document</var>'s <span>latest entry</span>
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -105659,7 +105671,8 @@ location.href = '#foo';</code></pre>
<li><p><span>Assert</span>: <var>entriesForNavigationAPI</var> is given.</p></li>

<li><p><span data-x="reactivate a document">Reactivate</span> <var>document</var> given
<var>entry</var> and <var>entriesForNavigationAPI</var>.</p>
<var>entry</var>, <var>entriesForNavigationAPI</var>, and
<var>stickyActivationToCarryOver</var>.</p>
</ol>

<p class="note"><var>documentsEntryChanged</var> can be false for one of two reasons: either we
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -105710,8 +105723,9 @@ location.href = '#foo';</code></pre>

<p>To <dfn data-x="reactivate a document" export for="Document">reactivate</dfn> a
<code>Document</code> <var>document</var> given a <span>session history entry</span>
<var>reactivatedEntry</var> and a <span>list</span> of <span data-x="session history
entry">session history entries</span> <var>entriesForNavigationAPI</var>:</p>
<var>reactivatedEntry</var>, a <span>list</span> of <span data-x="session history entry">session
history entries</span> <var>entriesForNavigationAPI</var>, and a boolean
<var>stickyActivationToCarryOver</var>:</p>

<p class="note">This algorithm updates <var>document</var> after it has come out of <a
href="#note-bfcache">bfcache</a>, i.e., after it has been made <span>fully active</span>
Expand All @@ -105720,6 +105734,16 @@ location.href = '#foo';</code></pre>
of events that happen in effect of the change is clear.</p>

<ol>
<li>
<p>If <var>stickyActivationToCarryOver</var> is true, then set <var>document</var>'s
<span>relevant global object</var>'s <span>has sticky activation</span> to true.</p>

<p class="note" id="note-user-activation-bfcache-carry-over">This means we are performing a
same-origin traverse from a document with sticky activation, in which case, we want to carry
over sticky activation if present, even if this bfcached <code>Document</code> did not
originally have it.</p>
</li>

<li id="history-autocomplete"><p><span data-x="list iterate">For each</span>
<var>formControl</var> of form controls in <var>document</var> with an <span>autofill field
name</span> of "<code data-x="attr-fe-autocomplete-off">off</code>", invoke the <span
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -106352,8 +106376,8 @@ location.href = '#foo';</code></pre>
data-x="navigation-params-origin">origin</span>.</p></li>

<li>
<p>If <var>navigable</var>'s <span data-x="nav-container">container</span> is not null,
then:</p>
<p>If <var>navigationParams</var>'s <var>navigable</var>'s <span
data-x="nav-container">container</span> is not null, then:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Let <var>parentEnvironment</var> be <var>navigable</var>'s <span
Expand Down
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