RE: FW: Skip navigation in WCAG-2

David Woolley wrote:

(quoting JF)
>> We are of the opinion that there may already be a reliable if
>> under-used and under supported element: the relative link (<link
>> rel="bookmark" title="site navigation" href="#nav" />, although a
>> case could, perhaps
> 
> That's a hack, as it is using the title to do the job of the
> rel attribute. Also, as others have pointed out, skip
> navigation links are really about finding the start of the
> content, so your title should be "start of content" and the
> href should be something like #content.
>

Actually David, I beg to differ - using the relative link element is not
a hack, it is perfectly legal, structurally correct use of HTML.  A hack
would be creating a link to a 1 X 1 invisible gif...

I perhaps should have expanded... Not only would I (should I) provide
the relative link to the navigational block, but one to the content as
well:
	<link rel="bookmark" title="site navigation" href="#nav" />
	<link rel="bookmark" title="go to content" href="#content" />

I would agree that relying on the Title attribute is a bit of a kludge
(the actual link is "bookmark"), but again, valid and correct coding per
W3C (and proper usage of the Title attribute as well).  *And*, I did
suggest that the list of standardized relative links be expanded to
include "navigation" (and I suppose "content" as well):

"...although a case could, perhaps should, be made for the introduction
of a standardization of "navigation", as in <link rel="navigation"...>
(See: http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/types.html#type-links)" 

(David - something you left off of your reply...)


Consider:  If these two additions were added to the list of Standard
relative links (see the W3C link above), then both authors and user
agent developers would have the same benchmark to strive for.  How the
user agent handled these particular relative links would be left to the
agents, but the point is, it would be a simple thing to do, and the
learning curve for Jesper's "millions" of authors would be small to
none... We already use the relative link construct for, among other
things, style sheets.  As well, user agents / browsers such as Opera,
Mozilla and Lynx already support <link rel...> by making them available
to the end user as navigational elements (each browser deals with them
slightly differently, but all *do* support).

Points to ponder...

JF

Received on Friday, 10 September 2004 14:04:15 UTC