Re: "placeholder link" (was HTML5 differences from HTML4 editor's draft)

At 03:01 +1000 UTC, on 2007-06-25, Lachlan Hunt wrote:

> Johannes Lichtenberger wrote:
>>> http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/~checkout~/html5/html4-differences/Overview.html
>>
>> I don't really understand what "The a element without an href attribute now
>> represents a "placeholder link"." means, I can't really imagine what a
>> placeholder link should be or what it's used for.
>
> It just means that it's where a link would ordinarily be, but currently
> isn't.  For example:
>
> <menu>
>    <li><a href="/">Home</a>
>    <li><a>Products</a>
>    <li><a href="/services">Services</a>
>    <li><a href="/about">About</a>
> </menu>

Why would authors need this? It's just as easy to write  <li>Products.

Btw, the relevant section,
<http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/section-phrase.html#the-a>,
doesn't seem to define "placeholder link"; doesn't define what the UA should
do with it. Surely it should define that UAs should present such content as
if there is no <a> element present? It would suck for users if such a 'link'
would be presented as if it is a hyperlink.

[...]

> One advantage is that allows to you easily style it differently from the
> other links, to indicate that it is the current page, without requiring
> an additional class.  e.g.
>
> menu a { /* Styles for current page */ }
> menu a:link { /* Styles for other links */ }

nav ul li { /* Styles for current page */ }
nav ul li a:link { /* Styles for other links */ }


-- 
Sander Tekelenburg
The Web Repair Initiative: <http://webrepair.org/>

Received on Sunday, 24 June 2007 23:11:07 UTC