[whatwg] Issues concerning the <base> element and xml:base

[Jonas Sicking]

On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 4:54 PM, Ian Hickson <ian at hixie.ch> wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Jan 2009, Jonas Sicking wrote:
>> > On Thu, 17 Jul 2008, Jonas Sicking wrote:
>> > > Assuming there is something sane we can all agree on. So far that is not
>> > > the case. On both points :)
>> >
>> > I think the current text in the spec is pretty reasonable at this point. The
>> > main text is here:
>> >
>> >    http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#dynamic-changes-to-base-urls
>> >
>> > ...and other parts of the spec ensure that the "Otherwise" clause in that
>> > section is true (e.g. by carefully defining when a URL is resolved and then
>> > not resolving it again in the algorithms).
>>
>> Out of curiosity, why make exceptions for hyperlinks here and the cite
>> attribute here? As opposed to for example images and iframes?
>
> Because the "don't do anything special" behavior (not caching the absolute
> URL or anything like that) leads to the following scenario:
>
>   user hovers over link
>   UA resolves URL for display
>   script changes the base URL
>   user clicks link
>   UA resolves URL differently for navigation
>
> ...leading to the UI not matching what the UA actually does unless the UI
> is updated when the base URL changes. It's only a "should" though, because
> well, if you want your UI to be out of date, it's not critical.
>
> I can make it a "may" if you think "should" is too strong.

I don't care much either way. I think I'd prefer it more strongly for
the 'cite' attribute.

/ Jonas