Hi,
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.
The spec says[1],
|If the a element has no href attribute, then the element is a placeholder
|for where a link might otherwise have been placed, if it had been relevant.
Why must a placeholder have contents?
> For keyboard access, you need a tabindex="0" which has no effect in
legacy
> UAs, and you currently can't trigger the click event from keyboard in
IE6 or
> Firefox on a span element.
>
> The javascript: URI scheme is a separate issue. If we replace the href
with
> "http://example.org/"; -- or "mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]", or "data:,foo", or
> whatever -- in my first example, I would still like to use an empty a
> element in the markup.
I don't understand why you couldn't just use styling to make an <a>
element "display: inline" for screen media and "display: none" for print
media. Inserting the contents into <a> and establishing an |onclick|
event means that you'll have to turn right around and use proprietary
events like |onbeforeprint| and |onafterprint| to deal with the extra
<a> element so that it won't be seen when you print.
My conserns has nothing to do with printing in itself, or what is displayed
on the screen vs. the paper. I merely want a blank <a/> to be allowed, if
the href attribute is not set.
So the questions are:
1) Why wouldn't you want the content in the element to be inserted by
Javascript when the page loads when you can just include the content in
markup and hide it using CSS?
I don't want to hide it, I want it to be non existent when scripting is
disabled or non-supported.
2) Even if some of your users don't have support for CSS, why would you
choose to insert content via Javascript when such inserting doesn't
change the fact that you're going to have to remove the content before
printing?
I don't want to remove it before printing.
3) How does your original example even prevent the content from being
viewed when printing?
It doesn't.
4) What prevents you from inserting the entire <a> element into a <span>?
It's more code, and an empty <a/> is IMHO equally harmful as an empty
<span/>, so I can use the a element directly.
5) How to you get rid of styling for the <a> element if all <a> elements
are styled in such a way that they are easily visible even when they
have no contents?
By using ":link, :visited" as selector.
The bottom line is that you need a much better use case.
Ok.
A link to select all text in a textarea:
| <p>Sample code: <a id="sel"></a> <textarea>...</textarea></p>
| <script>
| var elm = document.getElementById("sel");
| elm.appendChild(document.createTextNode("select all"));
| elm.href = "javascript:selectall()";
| function selectall(){...}
| </script>
A link to an application that requires javascript to be enabled:
| <p>This application requires javascript. <a id="proceed"></a></p>
| <script>
| var elm = document.getElementById("proceed");
| elm.appendChild(document.createTextNode("Proceed"));
| elm.href = "the-app.html";
| </script>
Regards,
Simon Pieters
[1] http://whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#the-a
