Web browser makers Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Mozilla have established a cross-browser benchmark initiative, called Interop 2022, to address interoperability issues on the web platform.

The initiative has produced a public metric to gauge progress toward resolving browser interoperability issues. Also participating in the initiative, which was announced on March 3, are web consulting firm Bocoup and software consultant Igalia.

Interop 2022 has three areas of investigation:

• Edit, contentEditable and execCommand
• Pointer and mouse events
• Window measurement.

Interop 2022 has 10 new focus areas:

• Cascading layers
• Color spaces and functions
• Containment
• Dialog element
• Shapes
• Scroll
• Subnet
• Typography and encodings
• Window units
• Web compatibility

These 10 new domains join five domains adopted by Google and Microsoft’s previous Compat 21 effort:

• aspect ratio
• Flexible box
• Gate
• Sticky positioning
• Transforms

Those interested in participating can follow the instructions on the Interop 2022 dashboard.

Mozilla said the web developer feedback and end-user bug reports it collected indicate two main types of interoperability issues: issues where there was a relatively clear and accepted standard, but where implementations were buggy or incomplete, and issues where the standard was missing. , not clear or does not correspond to the behavior on which the sites depend.

Issues in the first category, called “priority areas,” can be resolved through web platform testing that ensures web standards are implemented consistently across all browsers. Problems in the latter category, called “areas of investigation,” will need to be resolved through investigation and measurement against more qualitative goals.

For the latter, it is not possible to simply write tests because what is needed to achieve interoperability is not clear. These “unknown unknowns” turn out to be extremely common sources of frustration for developers and users alike, Mozilla said.