Re: Why Skip Navigation Links are a Hack

On 13 Jun, Kynn Bartlett wrote

>>   is presentational markup ? Could you please refer to the relevant
>>   sections of the HTML specification stating that internal links are
>>   presentational and only applies for one specific media type ?
> 
> It's not structural, and it introduces a link for no reason other
> than providing functionality in or more presentations.

   For some reason your logic escapes me. I am under the impression that
   a hyperlink is, indeed, structural. Would you agree with this ?

   Proceeding with that assumption, *any* hyperlink would be structural.
   Would you still agree ?

   And, if so, I wonder what precisely the difference is between a

     <a href="#main">Main content</a>

   and

     <a href="#first">Chapter One</a>

   Frankly, apart from the fact that as it IS in the currently standard
   (ie. WCAG 1.0) that is, under some circumstances, to be followed and
   hence should be in there, I cannot see that there is a fundamental
   difference.

   Either A is a structural element, and can be freely used to create
   links, OR it isn't - and all of them should go.
  


> In a "pure" form of content-driven structural HTML, rather than one
> which makes special exceptions for specific modalities, there's no way
> you'd be inserting such a link.

  Would you, then, not use any form of internal link at all ?


> But the insertion of that _link_ at a particular place is only meant
> to force the insertion of an arbitrary link at an arbitrary place.

  No. The reason for inserting that link at a particular place is to
  give the user a link to a specific part/section of a document.
  Sometimes a cigar is, simply, a cigar.

  Yes, LINK would be better for this purpose. Sadly the idea that was
  introduced in 1995 has yet to be adopted by so-called "mainstream"
  browsers, even if Lynx has had it for ages.

  'Skip navigation' is not a 'hack'. It is, quite simply, using a normal
  internal hyperlink to solve a very practical problem of accessibility.

   Applying a less-than-perfect tool for a particular job is not exactly
   the same as applying the *wrong* tool.



> But Skip Navigation is still a hack -- because it's pseudo-structural
> markup, that functions as presentational markup.

  You stand by your claim that A, then, is pseudo-structural at best ?

-- 
 -    Tina Holmboe                    Greytower Technologies
   tina@greytower.net                http://www.greytower.net/
   [+46] 0708 557 905

Received on Friday, 13 June 2003 20:49:28 UTC