Re: CSS3 Hyperlinks and the target attribute

Umm.. OK.

I read the CSS3 Hyperlinks draft and at the top it said this was the 
list for discussion regarding the contents of the draft. Bascially what 
I am debating here is wether target-new and target-position should be in 
the draft or not.

You mention I should perhaps post in a UA specific list but the topic I 
raised is not UA specific, in fact if anything it's trying to remove UA 
specific things (such as the ability to support and control multiple 
windows) from the draft.

Having said that I can understand if this list is only for discussing 
the semantics of the things that are in the draft, not change the 
fundamental nature of the functionality they support. As I said before I 
am completely new to W3C discussions so I don't really know my way 
around the huge number of mailing lists and their scopes.

Can someone suggest a better place to bring this up?

Cheers,
Sam


Felipe Gasper wrote:

>
> I could be wrong, but I would say that this list probably isn't the 
> best place to discuss something like that. What a browser does with an 
> anchor tag is probably best discussed on an HTML-specific list 
> (www-html@w3.org, is it?) or a UA-specific list like the various 
> Mozilla discussion groups.
>
> -Felipe Gasper
> Urbana, IL
>
> Quoth Sam Kearns on 3/2/2004 7:14 PM...
>
>>
>> Hi Everyone,
>>
>> I am completely new here so if your thinking maybe I "don't get it" 
>> on some issue or another you may very well be correct and I gladly 
>> welcome any corrections or clarifications you would like to add. This 
>> email is just offered to promote some debate, I don't think I am the 
>> first or last word on this issue. Also, to make things simpler, 
>> whenever I say "window" in the text below I mean any window, tab or 
>> rendering surface.
>>
>> I believe that the decision of wether to open a new window when a 
>> link is clicked is entirely up to the user and/or their user agent. I 
>> don't think the page author has any business at all making this 
>> decision.
>>
>> It is my opinion that the target attribute of a link should never be 
>> able to affect any window/tab other than the one in which it was 
>> clicked. The only thing I would like to see the target attribute used 
>> for is to control existing frames or iFrames within the same window.
>>
>> I have never seen a page that either affected or opened another 
>> window that wasn't guilty of at least one of the following.
>>    a) Could be done better using DIVs or iLayers (like progress 
>> meters, psuedo dialogue boxes, help info, etc.)
>>    b) Made a decision that should rightfully only be made by the user 
>> (opening a link to another site in a new window)
>>    c) Tried to subvert and/or control the users browsing experience 
>> to the detriment of the user. (pop-ups, pop-unders etc.)
>>
>> To that end I would like to see the concept of opening new windows 
>> through the target property removed from future CSS specifications.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Sam
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>

Received on Tuesday, 2 March 2004 20:41:24 UTC