Re: kelvSYC's Thoughts on the new XHTML Draft

David Woolley wrote:
> 
> > Authors make use of target without frames all the time.  Target can be used
> > with frames but neither is dependent on the other.
> 
> Generally they use them for popups, which is a presentational/behavioural
> feature, having many of the undesirable features of frames and being
> heavily abused (but probably by the scripting route) to force advertising
> on users of pages on free hosting services.  Their use is discouraged
> by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, because they cause
> unexpected changes in focus.

I can't agree that target is "generally" used for popups.  Yes, popups
almost always use target, but there are many valid reasons why one
might want to start a new window which should not be overlooked.  The WCAG
guidelines may well deprecate the use of target, but so many other
activities can cause a change of focus that singling out the use
of target seems to me to be way o.t.t.  I /hate/ it when I'm busy
typing away, and some asynchronous task changes focus (sometimes
causing my keystrokes to be interpreted in totally unexpected ways,
leading to accidental deletion of e-mails and so forth) but clicking
on a link is /not/ asynchronous, and if focus changes as a result,
it is not unreasonable (IMHO).

Philip Taylor, RHBNC

Received on Monday, 12 May 2003 06:59:52 UTC