Re: Dropping <input usemap="">

On Tue, 14 Aug 2007, Philip Taylor (Webmaster) wrote:
> 
> So are you arguing that the design of HTML 5 should be based, in part, 
> on a putative "need" to support sites that have used a documented 
> feature of HTML 4.01, yet which rely on that feature not working as 
> documented in some fraction of their visitor's browsers? Are we really 
> going to re-define the syntax and semantics of HTML based on the 
> contra-normative use of it by a small number of seemingly perverse 
> sites?

Oh yes, definitely. As you say, it's only a part of the many things we 
should base our research on, but in some cases (such as <input usemap>) it 
becomes a critical part. It's not necessarily a small number, either; 
usemap on <input> is used on hundreds of thousands of pages, yet in almost 
all cases (87% in the study I did) the attribute points to nowhere or to a 
<map> that has no useful <area> elements. (And, as noted before, the 
remaining dozen thousand cases or so are limited to a few hundred sites, 
and most of those, by inspection, work better in browsers that don't 
support <input usemap>.)

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Tuesday, 14 August 2007 21:19:30 UTC