Behavior Attachment

WORK IN PROGRESS

Comparison between the decorator and element behavior attachment.

	Decorator	Element
Purpose	Give existing content new behavior and/or appearance.	Create new content building blocks.
Use Cases	Add special UI treatment to all vcards in a document Create an extension to provide extra download options for certain types of links	Built-in HTML controls: input/textarea, media, etc. Custom controls
Identity	Does not change the identity of the element.	Creates a new type of element.
Lifetime	Transient, added and removed dynamically.	Permanent, originates with the element’s creation and exists through the lifetime.
Content Environment	Foreign document or limited control of content	Full control of content
Shadow Tree	Each decorator must have its own shadow subtree, and the aggregate shadow tree of an element is composed out of these subtrees.	Only one tree, initialized as the element is created.
DOM API	Should avoid adding any extra methods or properties to the DOM element that’s being decorated.	Explicitly interested in exposing methods or properties on the DOM element as its API.