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Re^2: Deprecate target attribute in <a> tag
by ambrus (Abbot) on Sep 16, 2005 at 18:33 UTC
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It aint broken, so it should only be depreciated, not forbidden completely.
That's still more than you should expect: the Q tags were forbidden completely (in both the CB and posts) just because some browsers (IE) don't handle it correctly. That's a devil's loop: if people don't use the Q tag, then browsers will never support it. (Also, does anyone know if this can be fixed at least partially with a CSS declaration?)
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This is clearly the devil's loop. If Perl monks don't produce target="_blank" links, then you and herveus will clearly never get off your duffs and fix your browsers to ignore target= (and perhaps browsers will never support such a configuration) and all of the other sites on the internet will continue to annoy you two by violently forcing you to open a new window against your will.
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Howdy!
Pray, enlighten me then.
I use FireFox these days. What magic incantation do I perform to
make it ignore target?
Frankly, most sites that I deal with *don't* use that "feature".
In addition, I *do* often open links in new tabs. I'd be mostly
mollified if I could tell Firefox that "target=_blank" should
open a new tab.
...and, now that I've done a bit of research, I find that there
*is* and extension for Firefox that probably will do what I want,
and also that the Firefox team has considered the whole mess of
just *how* target should work with tabs and all that. If I read
it correctly, Firefox 1.5 may have improved control over this
matter.
Now, I'm not withdrawing my request to deprecate the use
of the target attribute. I didn't say "ban it outright". I started
with something less drastic. I'd like to see reasoned discussion
of the benefits of "target" in the context of links on PM.
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Well, there's some truth in that. I'm not sure.
But if many people fix their browsers to ignore those attributes, than more sites may use javascript to open links in a new window (some sites do that now too), which is even worse than the current situation. Surely, you can block those pop-ups easily, but then the page doesn't get loaded anywhere, it's not just that it's loaded in the same window.
(Also note that there's also a better reason of using the target attribute: loading pages to the correct frame on framed pages. It's only the case when it opens a new window that should be ignored.)
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Re^2: Deprecate target attribute in <a> tag
by herveus (Prior) on Sep 16, 2005 at 17:47 UTC
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Howdy!
The specific motivation was its use in a node this morning. The
node was considered and janitored, removing the target attributes.
My personal take is that any link that is meant to forcibly open
a new window is b0rken, in that it's for *me* to decide if I want
that link to open in a new window or not. Similarly, links that
don't work when they are forcibly opened into a new tab/window
are equally b0rken.
One can fairly ask what constructive purpose that attribute serves.
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The node was considered and janitored, removing the target attributes.
And it seemed a bit abusive, outside of the scope of the janitorial mandate. I don't think janitors should be mucking with such trivialities of other people's compositions. Janitorial intervention should require something at least a little more dire.
A better choice would have been to /msg the author, IMO.
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Howdy!
I did /msg the author, but I considered it after being encouraged to do
so in conversation in the ChatterBox. I certainly did not just jump in
with a consideration, and this discussion is an outcome of conversation
with marto as well. The author was not averse to editing, and probably
would have done what the janitors did had I not considered it.
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My personal take is that any link that is meant to forcibly open a new window is b0rken, in that it's for *me* to decide if I want that link to open in a new window or not.
The link isn't b0rked, your browser is. HTML can't "forcibly" open a new window on your desktop. Your consent must be given. If you choose to use a browser that doesn't allow you to control that, then you are implicitly giving your consent.
I'm going to take a wild guess and assume that you surf sites other than Perl Monks. Are you going to petition all of them to remove the "target" attribute from their links?
The fact is that the target attribute is useful. And it isn't going anywhere. If you don't like it, you can avoid its effects... but that's an itch you have to scratch yourself.
-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";
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Howdy!
I didn't say "broken"; I said "b0rked". It is unfortunate that
browser-level control of this behavior is not widespread or standard.
The choice of a browser involves tradeoffs. You cannot infer acceptance
of the consequences of abusive web coding from the choice of browsers.
At the very least, you don't get to tell me it's all my fault and that
I shouldn't complain.
Now, I have been known to make my displeasure known to other web sites
at their use of target=_blank on links. This case was the first time I
recall running into that usage on PM, and it was not a site function,
but a user created link.
I have yet to see a cogent argument why the target attribute is useful
on PM. I have seen discussion of how it can be useful in a framed page,
but that is not relevant here, nor to those discussions speak to setting
it to _blank. I really dislike web sites that think they should control
my browser by opening windows when I click links. It's popups all over
again. I do have my browser configured to give me a visual cue that a
link will try to open a new window, but that does not excuse the abuse
of that feature.
My request was confined to its use here on PM.
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