Re: CSS3 Hyperlinks and the target attribute

My mistake - I didn't realize that CSS3 touched on things like that. It seemed 
to me from your question that you meant to debate the legitimacy of such HTML 
markup:

<a href='foo.html' target='myNewWindow'>Click me</a>

...hence my suggestion to turn to an HTML list. Mea culpa.

-FG

Quoth Sam Kearns on 3/2/2004 7:41 PM...
> 
> 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 Wednesday, 3 March 2004 00:24:09 UTC