Mimi asked me to start a discussion about using hyperlinks in dialogs, or perhaps the UI in general in Chandler. This started up in https://bugzilla.osafoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8000
There are some issues in using hyperlinks in the UI: * If nothing happens when you click one, you are stuck. * Hyperlink controls can not be tabbed to, so they are an accessibility issue. * There is no way for the user to know where the link leads to without actually clicking it and having a browser pop open with the URL. The first issue is something many Linux users will run into in my experience. I have seen that occasionally, and even when it opens up a browser window in my case it does it in a new tab which is different from what happens when I click a link in Thunderbird for example (and the end result is that I thought nothing happened). The second issue is clearly an accessibility issue, but it will frustrate people who like to use keyboard rather than the mouse as well. The last issue is more an issue of politeness, or if you want to take it extreme, security (spam and phishing are famous for hiding/misrepresenting where a link is really leading to). I presented a workaround for all of these issues: show the full URL as the hyperlink. Even if there are bugs that break clicking and tabbing, the user can still manually type the URL in their browser. And users will immediately see where the link will go without needing to click it. The only downside would be slightly less neat UI. -- Heikki Toivonen
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