Subject:
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Why I hate # anchors
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.faq
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Date:
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Fri, 14 May 1999 19:38:31 GMT
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Viewed:
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1754 times
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In lugnet.faq, jsproat@geocities.com (Sproaticus) writes:
> 1. "#xxx" anchors serve a good purpose, even for pointing to items halfway
> through another file. For example, providing a back-link to a region in a
> table of contents, or referring to a specific word within a glossary.
I think #-anchors are totally evil and I wish they'd never been invented in
HTML (or at least implemented as poorly as they have been by the browser
manufacturers).
Here's why I think they totally suck and I hate them even more than I hate
the way HTML frames are implemented:
1. They're just a substitute for taking the time to break something up
carefully into smaller, more digestible segments; and they're not
something for serious (read repeat) use.
2. #-anchors encourage the use "Back to the top" links, which are okay for
one-stop visits, but totally mess up the page view stack when clicking
through multiple items.
3. If I visit a few links via, say:
<A HREF="foo.html#bar1">
<A HREF="foo.html#bar3">
<A HREF="foo.html#bar7">
and I read the complete contents #bar1, #bar3, and #bar7, and then I
continue on after #bar7 also to read #bar8 and #bar9, then when I back
up to the earlier page, only those three links #bar1, #bar3, and #bar7
will be VLINK-colored even though I accessed #bar8 and #bar9 on my
screen.
4. If I visit <A HREF="foo.html#bar7"> and then I change the width of my
browser window, I'm screwed: I lose my position on the page (unless I'm
running a browser which handles this correctly which I haven't yet
seen). Now I have to hit the Back button, followed by the Forward
button, to see what I want to see -- but doing that DOESN'T EVEN WORK
in Netscape 4.5. I have to actually find and click the #bar7 link a
second time.
5. (Related to previous gripe) If I click into the #bar25 section of a
large page, then I read further down into the #bar26 section (heck if
I'm gonna click Back and then click #bar26 when I can just scroll down
naturally), and if the #bar26 section has a link to another site, which
I visit, now later when I return to foo.html, the browser pops me back
to exactly where I was (good) if I haven't resized my window. But if
I have resized my window, and I've been at the other size for long
enough for me to forget where I was on foo.html (was it #bar25 or
#bar26?) then I'm screwed again.
6. If the #bar items are small, then the HTML page I'm viewing had better
have a whole ton of whitespace at the bottom so that the #bar item shows
up at the top of the screen when I click on it. (This is a browser
issue; I think Internet Exploiter actually handles this correctly.)
7. If I enter a page via <A HREF="foo.html"> and it shows me a little table
of contents at the top with a bunch of #bar items to stuff below, I'm
likely to click on those #bar links rather than scrolling downward on
the page if the page is large.
a. If I click on #bar37 before the page finishes loading, nothing
happens. Grrrr. (This is arguably a browser problem.)
b. If I click on #bar1, the result is usually that the screen scrolls
down only half a screenful. Now when I click the Back button, it
scrolls up only half a screenful. Blyecch.
8. Some newbies actually bookmark and publish links to "foo.html#bar7" when
they really mean to give a link to foo.html. (This is arguably a
browser problem. Browsers really ought to change the URL in the
Location window dynamically as the page is scrolled, instead of the way
it works now.)
9. The use of #-anchors increases the chances that carelessly written
crawlers/robots can request the same page over and over.
--Todd
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