RE: javascript and URLs

On Fri, 16 Mar 2001, Wendy A Chisholm wrote:

> I agree that this is a user agent issue.  It's already implemented in Opera 
> (4.x+), although it sometimes seems to hang with a document.open(). You are 
> able to configure if you want new windows created or not.  This works for 
> both new windows created with javascript (refer to example 4 at [1]) and 
> new windows created with target="new" on an HTML A element (refer to the 
> link "Savannah Area Convention and Visitors Bureau Website" at [2]).

Making it a user-agent issue does not resolve it on the designer's end. If
someone were to decide to convey meaningful information via pop-up window,
their site could be completely broken by requiring it of user agents.
Also, those who aren't paying attention to browser features appearing in
some future version are likely to create unusable/inaccessible sites if
it's not spelled out for them. As I said before, if it's an issue, it's
got to be both with WCAG and UAAG: once to alleviate the symptoms, and
once to cure the disease.

I'll reiterate that the major browser vendors are not likely to take
kindly to a requirement such as this, as both Microsoft and AOL are media
companies, and their content organizations either use pop-ups currently or
are expected to do so to satisfy advertisers. You can't expect the foxes
to guard the henhouse, and as a result, it's incumbent on us to provide
rules which are at worst redundant, and more likely the only line of
defense.

-
m

Received on Friday, 16 March 2001 16:28:21 UTC