[whatwg] [WA1] The a element could be empty

[Ian Hickson]

On Thu, 1 Sep 2005, Simon Pieters wrote:
> 
> The spec currently says[1]:
> 
> |The a element must not be empty.
> 
> I think it would be more useful if it was changed to:
> 
> |If the a element has an href attribute set, then the element must not 
> be empty.
> 
> It is easier to use an empty a element as a placeholder to grab and use 
> with scripts later on, for instance:
> 
>   <a id="print"></a>
> 
> With:
> 
>   var elm = document.getElementById("print");
>   elm.href = "javascript:window.print()";
>   elm.appendChild(document.createTextNode("Print this page"));
> 
> ...rather than to create the link with script from scratch.

The spec now doesn't say this at all, though there is a general 
"should"-level requirement that encourages elements like this not to be 
empty. Is that ok?


On Fri, 2 Sep 2005, Jasper Bryant-Greene wrote:
> 
> Since that's not actually a link (the href points to the javascript: URL 
> scheme which is an ugly hack), what's wrong with:
> 
> <span id="print" class="link"></span>
> 
> Where the link class may be styled to look like a link with CSS, and 
> then
> 
> var elm = document.getElementById("print");
> elm.onclick = window.print;
> elm.appendChild(document.createTextNode("Print this page"));

<span>s aren't links, so you can't do things like focus them, tab to them, 
etc. You also can't have the fallback of a real page (really the better 
design is an <a> that has a link to a page that is equivalent to running 
the script on it, and then have the script in an onclick="").


On Fri, 2 Sep 2005, Matthew Raymond wrote:
> 
> An empty <a> element is semantically meaningless. By contrast, <span> is 
> already defined as having no semantics and empty <span> elements are 
> commonly used for styling purposes.

I think this misses the point here.

(Also, <a> is no longer meaningless, it is explicitly defined as a 
placeholder for where a link would have been.)

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
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