Re: MathML in HTML: syntax for hypertext links

Jim Jewett wrote:
> It was rejected, because the browser makers refused.  Their most
> clearly stated objection is that they couldn't come up with a
> reasonable User Interface.

I'm sorry, but can you point me to this discussion?

> Today's user interface has no nested hrefs

Really?  Here's some markup that produces nested <a> elements in at 
least Gecko and Opera:

http://software.hixie.ch/utilities/js/live-dom-viewer/?%3C!DOCTYPE%20html%3E%0A%3Chtml%3E%0A%20%20%3Cbody%3E%0A%20%20%20%20%3Ca%3E%3Cspan%3E%3Ctable%3E%3Ctr%3E%3Ctd%3E%3Ca%3E%3C%2Fa%3E%3C%2Ftd%3E%3C%2Ftr%3E%3C%2Ftable%3E%3C%2Fspan%3E

And pages create nested <a> elements with DOM manipulation (and actually 
expect particular behavior in those cases; we've had a number of Gecko 
bug reports about this over the years).

> (and even nested handlers has had interop problems)

Yes, true.  But HTML5 is defining the nested-href behavior anyway, since 
it's trivial to get it in XHTML and not that hard to get it in HTML+DOM.

 > By allowing overlapping and nested hrefs
> ... that gets harder.

They can already happen, and UAs already need to deal with them.  The 
syntax is immaterial; you can nest <a> elements just like you could nest 
elements with href attributes.

-Boris

Received on Wednesday, 8 April 2009 12:55:54 UTC