Re: External links in XHTML 1.1

Etan Wexler:
>
> I suggest a value of 'external' for the 'rel' attributes of anchors.

That's what I think is the most "mark-upish" and harmless thing to do. It's
easy to style then with CSS attribute selectors, if one wants/needs to.
Btw.: A simple CSS3 selector does the same job for many, probably most links
one would consider "external": a[href^="http://"]. You cannot currently add
behaviour with CSS, though.

Despite the questions whether there should be a distinction between local
and external links and how to define the difference, I think, the W3C should
include "external" or "offsite" or the like in the informative list of
rel/rev attribute values. Thus UAs [c|w]ould incorporate a behaviour like
Roland Blüthgen has shown using Javascript.

Christoph Päper