Re: Validation error frequencies (target="_new")

On Mon, 04 Feb 2008 22:56:16 +0100, Philip Taylor <pjt47@cam.ac.uk> wrote:

>
> On 04/02/08 20:57, j.j. wrote:
>> HTML4 Transitional allows _blank, _parent, _self, _top but not _new.
>>  Browsers handle target="_new" same as target="xyz".
>
> Firefox handles target="_new" specially like target="_blank". IE6 /  
> Opera 9.2 / WebKit seem to not handle it specially.

Clearly, not handling it specially doesn't Break the Web. But it might  
improve the user experience since the author likely intended it to work  
the same as _blank.


> Firefox handles _content and (case-sensitively) _main, though I'm not  
> sure exactly what it does with them.

I think links from the sidebar can use one of those to open the link in  
the current tab instead of in the sidebar.


> IE6 also handles _main, though I'm also not sure what that does. And it  
> handles _media and _search, targeting the media and search sidebars  
> respectively.
>
> WebKit handles _current the same as _self.
>
>> Authors might erroneous use "_new" if they want the functionality of  
>> "_blank". Therefore having "_new" non-conforming and "_blank"  
>> conforming is hepful.

I agree.


> _new seems to be used quite commonly - I see the following <a target>  
> values on the given number of pages, out of 15K from dmoz.org:
>
> 5057  _blank
> 1636  _top
>   653  _self
>   429  new
>   269  _new
>   234  _parent
>   152
>   126  blank
>    78  NEW
>    29  _BLANK
>    25  main
>    24  _pollresults
>    19  Mailer
>    18  top
>    15  popup
>    11  _NEW
>    11  _phpbb
>    11  fs_body
>    10  _Blank
>    10  _TOP


-- 
Simon Pieters
Opera Software

Received on Tuesday, 5 February 2008 13:00:51 UTC