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Thread: Speaking of "Skip to" links
Number of posts in this thread: 16 (In chronological order)
From: Seth Rothberg
Date: Mon, Dec 13 2004 11:27AM
Subject: Speaking of "Skip to" links
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I'm working on a site template that has a "skip to" link that's acting
funny when my friend tests it in JAWS 4.5. The problem is that when she
chooses the "Skip Menu" link it takes here to the area right around the
target, not the target itself. I'd appreciate it if some folks would
take a look at my code and/or report their experience with the page in
JAWS.
The link comes up early on page and is called "Skip Menu." It's
supposed to take you to an header which contains the text "What's
New". Is there something I've done wrong in the code (I hope so) or is
this something that JAWS is doing on its own?
The page is: http://www.joneslibrary.org/newbanner13.html
Many thanks,
Seth
From: Jim Thatcher
Date: Mon, Dec 13 2004 12:51PM
Subject: Re: Speaking of "Skip to" links
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Visual focus is working but "input focus" is not. Check out
http://jimthatcher.com/skipnav.htm for a discussion of problems with input
focus and skip links.
Jim
Accessibility Consulting: http://jimthatcher.com/
512-306-0931
From: Seth Rothberg
Date: Mon, Dec 13 2004 4:56PM
Subject: Re: Speaking of "Skip to" links
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On Dec 13, 2004, at 2:51 PM, jim wrote:
>
> Visual focus is working but "input focus" is not. Check out
> http://jimthatcher.com/skipnav.htm for a discussion of problems with
> input
> focus and skip links.
Hi Jim,
Your article was just the thing I needed. Many thanks,
Seth
> Accessibility Consulting: http://jimthatcher.com/
> 512-306-0931
>
>
From: Sailesh Panchang
Date: Tue, Dec 14 2004 8:37AM
Subject: Re: Speaking of "Skip to" links
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Seth,
The target of the skip menu link is the line
:
<a name="pagecontent" href="#main" title="Main
Content"></a>
That anchor has a title and no visible linked text.
When I hit enter on the skip menu link with JAWS, it takes me exactly to that
line. It appears to sighted users as surrounding the next line
marked up with h2. The h2 line is not the target of the skip
menu.
So I see no problem at all with JAWS. Perhaps if
you make the line with the h2 the target of the skip menu, the focus will go
there!
Another observation: Although there is a
#main as a target in the above line of code, I could not find a name="main" on
the page.Hope this is useful.
Sailesh PanchangSenior Accessibility Engineer
Deque Systems,11180 Sunrise Valley Drive, 4th Floor, Reston VA
20191Tel: 703-225-0380 Extension 105 E-mail: <A
href="mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = "> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = :
703-225-0387* Look up <<A
href="http://www.deque.com">http://www.deque.com>; *
> I'm working on a site template that has a "skip to" link that's
acting> funny when my friend tests it in JAWS 4.5. The problem is that
when she> chooses the "Skip Menu" link it takes here to the area right
around the> target, not the target itself. I'd appreciate it if some
folks would> take a look at my code and/or report their experience with
the page in> JAWS.>> The link comes up early on page and is
called "Skip Menu." It's> supposed to take you to an <h2> header
which contains the text "What's> New". Is there something I've done wrong
in the code (I hope so) or is> this something that JAWS is doing on its
own?>> The page is: <A
href="http://www.joneslibrary.org/newbanner13.html">http://www.joneslibrary.org/newbanner13.html>;>
Many thanks,>> Seth>> ----> To subscribe or
unsubscribe, visit <A
href="http://www.webaim.org/discussion/">http://www.webaim.org/discussion/>;>
----> To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit <A
href="http://www.webaim.org/discussion/">http://www.webaim.org/discussion/>;----To
subscribe or unsubscribe, visit <A
href="http://www.webaim.org/discussion/">http://www.webaim.org/discussion/
From: Seth Rothberg
Date: Tue, Dec 14 2004 8:57AM
Subject: Re: Speaking of "Skip to" links
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On Dec 14, 2004, at 10:37 AM, sailesh.panchang wrote:
ArialSeth,
ArialThe target of the skip menu
link is the line :
Arial<<a name="pagecontent"
href="#main" title="Main Content">
ArialThat anchor has a title and
no visible linked text. When I hit enter on the skip menu link with
JAWS, it takes me exactly to that line. It
From: Austin, Darrel
Date: Tue, Dec 14 2004 9:06AM
Subject: Re: Speaking of "Skip to" links
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hmm...so this is something we shouldn't do?
Any suggestions as to what to do if one can't wrap it around actual content?
For instance, for our skip-links, we link to the top of the content via the
above method (an empty anchor tag). We can't link directly to the content H*
tag, because that is defined in the database...sometimes as a unique field
(which would work) but sometimes not, so there's no reliable way to wrap the
anchor around that.
-Darrel
From: Seth Rothberg
Date: Tue, Dec 14 2004 9:16AM
Subject: Re: Speaking of "Skip to" links
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On Dec 14, 2004, at 11:04 AM, darrel.austin wrote:
>
>
> hmm...so this is something we shouldn't do?
I don't know if something we can't do. Empty anchor tags do validate,
at least for the versions of html that I use. I don't know about xhtml.
I think it's just a personal qualm on my part.
Seth
From: julian.rickards
Date: Tue, Dec 14 2004 9:22AM
Subject: Re: Speaking of "Skip to" links
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In XHTML, the name attribute is deprecated and is replaced by id (except
forms where name is required for associating data with a field).
In the past, we created Link to Summary and
that linked to . However, instead of <a
name="summary">, you use id such as Summary.
Jules
From: Sailesh Panchang
Date: Tue, Dec 14 2004 9:57AM
Subject: Re: Speaking of "Skip to" links
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Seth,
1. Yes now the skip menu linkk works fine and takes
JAWS straight to the line marked up with h2.
Ref: <A
href="http://www.joneslibrary.org/newbanner13.html">http://www.joneslibrary.org/newbanner13.html
2. An anchor with just a title and no visible
screen text is fine. In fact it is one of the recommended methods for
implementing the skip nav technique which in fact the above page
does.
Sailesh PanchangSenior Accessibility Engineer
Deque Systems,11180 Sunrise Valley Drive, 4th Floor, Reston VA
20191Tel: 703-225-0380 Extension 105 E-mail: <A
href="mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = "> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = :
703-225-0387* Look up <<A
href="http://www.deque.com">http://www.deque.com>; *
On Dec 14, 2004, at 10:37 AM, sailesh.panchang wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
Seth,The
target of the skip menu link is the line :<a
name="pagecontent" href="#main" title="Main Content"></a>That
anchor has a title and no visible linked text. When I hit enter on the skip
menu link with JAWS, it takes me exactly to that line.
It appears to sighted users as surrounding the next line
marked up with h2. The h2 line is not the target of the skip menu.So I
see no problem at all with JAWS. Perhaps if you make the line with the h2
the target of the skip menu, the focus will go there!Another
observation: Although there is a #main as a target in the above line
of code, I could not find a name="main" on the page.Hope
this is useful.Very useful,
Sailesh. Many thanks for taking the time to look the page over. I think we
both feel uneasy about making the target empty so I've put it back around the
<h2> as you suggested. Plus I fixed up the bogus href. If you've got
time tell me if the target still works.
Seth
From: Seth Rothberg
Date: Tue, Dec 14 2004 10:19AM
Subject: Re: Speaking of "Skip to" links
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Sailesh,
Thanks for checking.
So tell me, if empty targets for skip text links are o.k.
(recommended, even) but can be made to work with non-empty tags,
which, as a JAWS user, do you find more convenient?
Seth
On Dec 14, 2004, at 11:55 AM, sailesh.panchang wrote:
ArialSeth,
Arial1. Yes now the skip menu
linkk works fine and takes JAWS
From: Austin, Darrel
Date: Tue, Dec 14 2004 10:21AM
Subject: Re: Speaking of "Skip to" links
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> <h2
> id="summary">Summary.
While that's proper XHTML, it's my understanding that that linking to
objects via the ID tag is not fully supported in older browsers, so it
doesn't hurt to stick with the anchor. (but I certainly may be wrong on that
;o)
My question was specifically with the empty anchor tag issue...and whether
or not that's a problem in terms of accessibility.
-Darrel
From: Terence de Giere
Date: Tue, Dec 14 2004 7:09PM
Subject: Re: Speaking of "Skip to" links
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Seth wrote:
I'm working on a site template that has
a "skip to" link that's acting
funny when my friend tests it in JAWS 4.5.
The problem is that when she
chooses the "Skip Menu" link it takes her
to the area right around the
target, not the target itself.
Seth --
The target of the "skip to" link is an empty anchor element. This is
allowable under the HTML or XHTML specifications, which state that user
agents should handle this situation, although some technology may have
trouble with this. To have the link go to the H2 heading, the anchor
element should surround the text in the H2 element, that is, the A
element should be inside the H2 element, not before it. In some older
graphical browsers this results in an underline of the text which also
may be colored blue by default; so it may confuse some visual users that
the heading is a clickable link, when it is just the target of a link.
The underline and blue color may be removed with CSS in some of these
browsers.
Terence de Giere
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Wed, Dec 15 2004 12:54AM
Subject: Re: Speaking of "Skip to" links
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On Tue, 14 Dec 2004, terence wrote:
> To have the link go to the H2 heading, the anchor
> element should surround the text in the H2 element, that is, the A
> element should be inside the H2 element, not before it. In some older
> graphical browsers this results in an underline of the text which also
> may be colored blue by default;
What might those browsers be? I have never seen a browser that underlines
or colors a simple destination anchor (an A element with NAME attribute
and without HREF attribute). Using CSS carelessly, an author could create
such a situation, but you need not do so. (When styling links, one should
normally use selectors like :link and :visited, not the element name A
alone.)
--
Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
From: julian.rickards
Date: Wed, Dec 15 2004 6:45AM
Subject: Re: Speaking of "Skip to" links
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Jukka wrote:
"When styling links, one should normally use selectors like :link and
:visited, not the element name A alone."
A small point perhaps but to save filespace of the CSS stylesheet, I combine
common style declarations of links ( tags) using the a selector and then
where :link, :visited, :active, and/or :hover differ, I declare those
differences separately.
Jules
From: Austin, Darrel
Date: Wed, Dec 15 2004 9:32AM
Subject: Re: Speaking of "Skip to" links
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> The target of the "skip to" link is an empty anchor element. This is
> allowable under the HTML or XHTML specifications, which state that
> user agents should handle this situation, although some technology
> may have trouble with this.
Do any screen readers have trouble with that? I guess that's my main
question.
> To have the link go to the H2 heading,
> the anchor element should surround the text in the H2 element
And this is the catch for our current site. Our page template looks like
this:
-----------------
skip to content
(navigation HTML)
(breadcrumb navigation)
content anchor
[page title - pulled from DB]
[page content - pulled from DB]
-----------------
The catch is that the page title is sometimes pulled in from a the
navigation DB table, while sometimes it's being pulled from the content DB
table.
I think I can work around this and add another layer of logic to the page
rendering module, but before I tackled that, I was wondering if the current
method of the empty anchor before the content is a problem for screen
readers.
-Darrel
From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Wed, Dec 15 2004 9:55AM
Subject: Re: Speaking of "Skip to" links
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On Wed, 15 Dec 2004, julian.rickards wrote:
> Jukka wrote:
>
> "When styling links, one should normally use selectors like :link and
> :visited, not the element name A alone."
>
> A small point perhaps but to save filespace of the CSS stylesheet, I combine
> common style declarations of links ( tags) using the a selector and then
> where :link, :visited, :active, and/or :hover differ, I declare those
> differences separately.
But that creates exactly the problem I was referring to: any styles you
then set for links will be applied to destination anchors
... as well. This is fine _if_ you don't define any
destination anchors that way but use id="..." attributes instead.
But for legacy documents, or documents that might get edited by others,
a { ... } is risky.
--
Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/