Re: Issues with Target Size SC

On 05/07/2017 20:08, Repsher, Stephen J wrote:
>> I'll still note that the technique is fine for situations where the density of links is very low
> 
> The tipping point for analysis of applicability occurs going from only 1 to 2 links, so I don't see how it would ever be a feasible or practical style to set.  Analysis is also not just a function of density, but anything that affects the physical placement of links relative to each other, including position and length of links in the block, container and/or viewport size, and font and text characteristics.  It would be dangerous to assume coverage of such variability.  Even if that could somehow be guaranteed, you'd still be left with odd decisions to be making, such as leaving the lonesome and free link to be 44px while the others need to be reduced to avoid overlap, or make them all consistent?
>  From a practical standpoint, I also don't know how this would work since it requires a very tight coupling between content and style.  Every writer's work would need to be analyzed via some infeasible script prior to publication, and then forced to alter links or perhaps use different CSS for each article..
> 

So much of the feedback on this SC centers on this "technique", which I 
threw together in a few minutes. Did I ever claim it would work 
everywhere? Did I ever claim it would work in situations where content 
is unknown/unknowable (with regards to how many links are present, and 
how close they may be to each other at varying viewport sizes, etc)? No.

Does the codepen show one approach of obtaining a large target for an 
element otherwise surrounded by text? Yes...and that was its only aim at 
the time.

> Finally, the technique is never fine, as of now, for issues surrounding focus highlights.  That would involve getting all user agents to agree on a default and correct way to handle this situation, and to somehow distinguish it from other negative margin situations where padding may not be used to completely offset it.  Personally, I'd argue that highlighting the entire clickable area is more correct.

Why exactly? Browsers don't take into account the margin when 
determining where the focus outline should be. Whether or not you use a 
positive or negative margin, it's not normally part of the focus 
outline. In my quickly thrown together demo 
https://codepen.io/patrickhlauke/pen/aBNREe I made a specific choice of 
adding    outline-offset: -1em to the link focus styles. Removing that 
you get the default browser behavior, which does include the padding, 
thus does include the entire clickable area.

P
-- 
Patrick H. Lauke

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Received on Wednesday, 5 July 2017 19:22:22 UTC