[whatwg] Image maps: should we drop <a coords="">?

[Ian Hickson]

On Tue, 12 Apr 2005, Lachlan Hunt wrote:
> > 
> > While it is definitely a better design than <area>,it isn't a 
> > substantially better design,
> 
> How so?  Although <a> might have a slightly less presentational name 
> than <area>, the semantics of both are identical when used for an image 
> map.

It's a better design because it has automatic full fallback. You only 
include the URI once to have the link work in browsers with no image map 
support.


> One request though.  When this section of the spec gets written, can you 
> provide an example with less presentational abuse than HTML 4 does. 
> Using it just to provide a navigational toolbar is innappropriate, 
> because the same can be, and has been, achieved with CSS.

Agreed. Incidentally, I'd ask everyone here to please keep me honest when 
it comes to examples. I'm trying hard to make sure they're all good clean 
examples but when you've been writing text for three hours, it can be very 
easy to come up with bogus examples.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'