Re: New window inform user, before or after link?

David Dorward wrote:

> What's more - say a user is using a windowless browsing environment 
> (such as lynx). Any such warning would be untrue as javascript and 
> target attributes can't make new windows open.

Right.  Moreover, one qua author cannot *know* what will happen when a 
user follows a target=_blank link, even when the user's navigating 
with a windowing browser, since no normative specification mandates 
how a browser *must* behave upon its user activating a target=_blank 
link [1].  In fact, the HTML4.01 specification expressly endorses 
browsers providing "a mechanism to override the target attribute":

  http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/present/frames.html#h-16.3.2

Such warnings could, therefore, be as false and misleading in a 
windowing browsing environment as they are meaningless, absurd and 
potentially confusing in a windowless browsing environment.


[1] The meaning of the target name "_blank" in HTML4.01 is: "The user 
agent should load the designated document in a new, unnamed window." 
(http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/types.html#type-frame-target ).  Note 
the key word "should", which ought to be interpreted according to 
RFC2119.  The meaning does not use "must", for hopefully obvious reasons.

-- 
Jock

Received on Sunday, 7 March 2004 14:52:25 UTC