[selectors-api] Handling :link and :visited Pseudo Classes

Hi,
   The current Selectors API draft states:

   "... user agents may treat all links as unvisited links, or implement
    other measures to preserve the user’s privacy."

I have noticed that to address this issue, Microsoft's implementation in 
the current IE8 beta, both :link and :visited pseudo-classes are being 
completely ignored.  That approach would technically fall under "other 
measures to preserve the user’s privacy", but it seems like it could be 
an interoperability issue.

Current WebKit builds and our internal Opera builds don't take any 
action.  Both :link and :visited return unvisited and visted links, 
respectively.  This also appears to be the approach Mozilla are planning 
to take [1].  I think we need to be interoperable with our handling of this.

I'm considering adjusting the spec to allow just two options, and making 
IE8's behaviour non-conforming.

Either:
1. Match unvisited and visted links normally with :link and :visited, 
respecitively.
2. Match all links with :link, and no links with :visted (i.e. treat all 
links as unvisited)

Another option would be to effectively treat :link and :visited as 
synonymous and match all links with both, but I'm not so comfortable 
with that.

Feedback from implementers on this issue, particularly from Microsoft, 
would be appreciated.

[1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=416317#c16

-- 
Lachlan Hunt - Opera Software
http://lachy.id.au/
http://www.opera.com/

Received on Wednesday, 16 April 2008 12:12:59 UTC