W3C home > Mailing lists > Public > www-validator@w3.org > February 2002

Re: opening a link in a new window: is it really so bad?

From: Peter Sheerin <pete@petesguide.com>
Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 14:26:07 -0800
Message-ID: <002e01c1bbef$ef02f1d0$8810960a@cadpkslaptop>
To: "Allan Clark" <allanc@caldera.com>, "todd fahrner" <fahrner@pobox.com>
Cc: <www-validator@w3.org>
> The point I'm trying to make is that this may be a useful addition to
> the spec, since it allows links to affect other windows in a lightweight
> browser that has no scripting.  Granted, this should be "with the
> permission of the user", but in a data element such as <A ...TARGET=..>
> the browser can recognize this and perhaps check permissions to see if
> this is permitted.
>
> It's clearly possible that the spec writers tried to get away from this
> kind of trick, but this particular trick remains very useful and
> light-weight.

My understanding is that TARGET was removed from X/HTML strict because it is
associated with frames. That's what it was designed for, in fact--the
ability to launch a new window was a (very useful) side effect that I
believe was inappropriately targeted for elimination as a by-product.

But it also appears that frames have new life--in modular XHTML. That should
make using TARGET OK again, and even validate.
Received on Friday, 22 February 2002 17:27:12 UTC

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