RE: proposal for this link/tspan discussion

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dean Jackson [mailto:dean@w3.org]
> Sent: August 22, 2002 10:45 AM
> On Tue, 20 Aug 2002, Jon Ferraiolo wrote:
> 
> > 
> > John,
> > It is true that static viewers are not required to support 
> hyperlinking.
> > The reason for this is that we were thinking of printers as 
> one class of
> > static viewers.
> 
> Hmmm... I don't think this is right. This would mean that a printer
> is required to ignore all content in an <a> element.
> I think a printer should be required to support <a>, to the
> extent that it renders the children and never follows the link.

That behaviour sounds right.  And let me play devil's advocate here.  I
believe it is the right behaviour FOR ALL STATIC VIEWERS.  If static viewers
want to allow following of hyperlinks so be it, but it shouldn't be a
requirement.

And it looks like the intent when writing the 1.1 spec was exactly as Dean
suggests, given the following excerpt:

"In environments that have appropriate user interaction facilities, the
viewer must support the ability to activate hyperlinks." [SVG 1.1 Spec, G.11
Conformance Criteria]

So "<a>" could simply be added to the static feature set, and printers could
still be conformant. (is that a word?).  Which is somewhat sad, because the
thread started by wanting to trash "<a>" completely.

Received on Thursday, 22 August 2002 11:18:23 UTC