[whatwg] borders on images inside links

[Steve Dennis]

On Thu, 8 Apr 2010, L. Ian Hickson wrote:
>
> Personally, my opinion is that images in links should have borders because

> otherwise how do you know it's a link?
>
> This seems to be a minority view, though. People have been explicitly 
> turning off this cue for literally over a decade.

I think that browser defaults should make sense when the page is rendered
Without author styles.  While authors often override this particular feature
, there they have the option to represent linked images in other ways such
as hover states, or more attractive borders etc.

Authors also often overwrite many other browser defaults such as font, 
styles for horizontal rules, often margins on paragraphs/headings/lists etc.
But it's probably not a good idea to set these things to zero.

At the end of the day, I've never found turning off borders much of a hassle
as an author.

--
Steve Dennis
http://www.subcide.com

>
> Generally for things like this the spec just does whatever is needed for 
> optimal compatibility with existing content. In this case, whoever, pages 
> don't by and large depend on one behaviour or the other, since there have 
> been browsers with significant market share on both sides of this issue 
> for a long time.
>
> If compatibility isn't a factor here, and it doesn't appear to be, then 
> we have to consider what provides the least work for authors. This appears

> to be having no border, since that is what most authors seem to gravitate 
> towards.
>
> We also have to consider what is best for users. In theory, that would be 
> to have the border -- but since so many authors disable the border, in 
> practice, our decision here doesn't affect users.
>
> This leads to the conclusion that resulted in the current spec text: the 
> only major factor here is author convenience, and that argues for no 
> border by default.
>
> -- 
> Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
> http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
> Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'