RE: A question on bypassing a group of links - IE work around

Jim Thatcher: <quote> 
The most common skip link technique is providing a link to an empty named
anchor <a name="content"><a> or <a id="content"><a> or even <a 
id="content"
/>. That technique does NOT work in IE6 with the keyboard as one of the
first skip links at http://wwww.acb.org illustrates. (Remember to tab one
more time after executing the skip link.) However I have come up with a
counter example to that statement. http://westciv.com has a visible skip
link at the top of the page. The target is an empty anchor. It works from
the keyboard. To make matters worse, when I saved westciv.com locally
without their style sheet, the skip link did not work with the keyboard -
which I would predict. When I downloaded the style sheet and attached it -
the skip link did work - which baffles me. This is a mystery to me and if
anyone can figure it out - I would love to here. 
</quote> 

Becky:
I previously responded to this post with some observations about the 
westciv example that Jim references above. See 
Becky_Gibson@notesdev.ibm.com: "RE: A question on bypassing a group of 
links"  for the gory details.   I now have a better explanation:
It seems if you add an element  with a width style around the named anchor 
tag it will work correctly in IE.  The attached example that I modified 
from one on Jim Thatcher's site (http://jimthatcher.com/skipnav1.htm) WILL 
work in IE 6.  The key is to wrap the named anchor in an element that has 
a width specified.  I used a span but a div also works. In the attached 
file the skip link is:  <A href="#content1">Skip to named  anchor</A>
The named anchor  that works correctly is: <span style="width:500px;"><A 
name="content1"></A>Target of the first skip link is immediately before 
this text.</span>

If I remove the style="width:500px" from the span, the IE bug raises its 
ugly head.  With the style="width:500px" on the span, the skip nav works 
properly - go figure!

The skip link in the attached file was tested and works correctly in IE 6, 
Mozilla 1.6, JAWS 4.51, Window Eyes 4.5 sp3, and HPR 3.04 (beta). 



-becky







Becky Gibson
Web Accessibility Architect
                                                       
IBM Emerging Internet Technologies
5 Technology Park Drive
Westford, MA 01886
Voice: 978 399-6101; t/l 333-6101
Email: gibsonb@us.ibm.com