WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

RE: Section 508 / WAI Sidebar

for

From: Jukka Korpela
Date: Aug 6, 2002 10:50PM

Tim Luoma wrote:

> Hrm.... I didn't even know about the _content as an option...

It really isn't an option.

> it's not listed at
>
> http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/types.html#type-frame-target

Moreover, that part of the specification says that user agents should ignore
target names that do not begin with an alphabetic character, except for the
specific list of names beginning with an underline. That is, if there is an
attribute target="_content", browsers should behave as if the attribute were
not present. Quite possibly not all browsers obey this rule; but it's hardly
a good idea to rely on browsers doing something strictly against a
specification.

> That said, both Mozilla and Opera support it, and it validates,

Support in which sense? By treating links as if the attribute were not
present.

Naturally target="_content" validates, just as target="Hello world!"
validates (but is incorrect). The target attribute is declared with CDATA
content, which means, basically, that anything goes. The restrictions are
specified in prose, not in the formalism of a DTD; hence a validator cannot
impose the restrictions.

So what _should_ be used as target attribute value? It depends on whether
you are using frames or multiple windows or both. Normally, for
accessibility reasons and other reasons, it is best to use neither, and then
no target attribute should be used. When frames are used, a target attribute
should refer to the frame in which the link should open, normally a "content
frame", or, if a link refers to an entire frameset which is to replace the
entire current view, target="_top" is used. And for opening new windows, the
choice is between target="_blank" (for opening a new window whenever the
link is followed) and target="foo" where "foo" is any name that begins with
a letter (for opening a new window if no window or frame with name "foo" is
present but using such a window or frame if present).

--
Jukka Korpela, senior adviser
TIEKE Finnish Information Society Development Centre
http://www.tieke.fi
Phone: +358 9 4763 0397 Fax: +358 9 4763 0399


----
To subscribe, unsubscribe, or view list archives,
visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/