[whatwg] Target Attribute Values

[Spartanicus]

Smylers <Smylers at stripey.com> wrote:

>> Possibly, but then what's the point of making _blank non conforming if
>> it is not trying to be a benefit to users by discouraging its use.
>
>There's also a difference between marking something as non-conforming
>(because there's a better alternative which should be used instead), and
>completely blocking the old way of doing it.

No-one has suggested that, I suggested a user configurable option to
prevent HTML code resulting in opening a new window. There is already at
least one browser that offers such an option.

>If target="_blank" is ignored users can't tell that the author intended
>some behaviour there.

That's a good thing if (as seems to be the case) it is agreed that
nothing will break by opening the link in the same window.

>Or perhaps a help link has target="_blank" and is
>labelled with "opens in new window" -- which could be dangerous if a
>user believed that label, only to lose her partly completed form.

Such a label classifies as an authoring error, just as <a
href="foo">this link blows up the world</a>, plus calling such
"dangerous" is imo much too strongly put, more so because the user has
deliberately enabled the config setting that prevents this.

-- 
Spartanicus