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From: Jukka Korpela
Date: Tue, Aug 06 2002 10:50PM
Subject: RE: Section 508 / WAI Sidebar
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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


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From: Tim Luoma
Date: Wed, Aug 07 2002 11:34AM
Subject: Re: Section 508 / WAI Sidebar
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On Wed, 7 Aug 2002, Jukka Korpela wrote:

> Tim Luoma wrote:
>
> > Hrm.... I didn't even know about the _content as an option...
>
> It really isn't an option.

That explains it then ;-)


> 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.

In general I would agree 100%, which is why I make sure to validate and
sanity check the pages.

If a browser did ignore the _content then it will simple render the link
in the same page. No harm there.


> > 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.

'Support it' in the sense and context that we have been talking about.

"Try _content instead of _blank to re-use the window rather than making a
new window for each"

That is what Opera and Mozilla do in their sidebar implementations.

Give the very specific nature of this page (to be used as a sidebar for
Mozilla and Opera) I might argue that using _content is fine... especially
considering that the whole functionality rests on XHTML 1.0 transitional
support for 'target' which isn't in XHTML1.0 strict anyway.

However it occurred to me that _new does the same thing and IS part of the
spec, so the page now uses _new

> 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.

Of course... however, again when talking specifically about a page
designed to be a sidebar which links to a page much too large to be put
into a sidebar panel and which would then offer the user no way to get
back to the panel itself, target is preferable.

TjL




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