WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Full vs partial URL in webpages, is there a rule for this?

for

From: Jim Allan
Date: Nov 7, 2011 4:27PM

Birkir,
not getting any information is an accessibility problem...for everyone
(grin)
if relative URLs don't work you need to fix it in your server
configuration. Especially, if the URL is a directory. Most webservers have
a default page (index.html, default.html) that will be loaded if no page is
given. If this page is not in the directory, you should receive a 404 page
not found error. It could also be setup to all directory browsing.
you may be getting nothing because it is a site that requires a login.
Though on sites I have been on like that, the server throws you to the
login page.
Sounds like you need to talk to the web admins.
Jim

On Mon, Nov 7, 2011 at 5:11 PM, Angela French < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> I have always used relative hrefs in my coding, rather than absolute.
>
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto:webaim-forum-
> > <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Birkir R. Gunnarsson
> >Sent: Monday, November 07, 2011 2:05 PM
> >To: WebAIM Discussion List
> >Subject: [WebAIM] Full vs partial URL in webpages, is there a rule for
> this?
> >
> >Hi gang
> >
> >I came across an interesting problem today, that turned out not to really
> be
> >an accessibility problem.
> >A user reported that clicking on a link on an internal wbsite did not
> produce
> >any results (no new page was loaded).
> >A quick check on the html code confirmed that the problem appears to be
> >that the href attribute of the anchor link only gives the internal folder
> url.
> >(since the website is a closed one I am probably not allowed to provide th
> >exact url).
> >Think of it as
> >a href="/subdirectory/document"
> >rather than
> >a href="http://mypage.com/subdirectory/documents"
> >Actually, the specific page was coded in asp.net I believe and the
> references
> >looked like
> >
> ><a href="/?PageID=337"
> >I confirmed this by cocatenating this part with the page address in the
> >address bar, and this took me to the subpage of the site as expected.
> >
> >Since this is a website where users have to log in, it seems to be ok for
> the
> >developers to assume that the url to the site itself is concatenated with
> the
> >links in the href part .. but this is not the case.
> >Isn't that an example of bad coding, shouldn't full urls always be
> included in
> >links, or are there situations where this technique is acceptable, or even
> >recommended?
> >I know this is not exactly accessibility, but I had to address it as an
> >accessibility problem, feel free to let me know if this is too off topic.
> >Thanks
> >-Birkir
> >