How do I get rid of the border on an image when I make it a live link?

[dorayme]

We're talking in general terms. I say that most of the times, having a
blue border around an image makes it clear to the visitor that he can
click the image, makes it clear to him that it is a clickable image,
that he is viewing a reactive image.

I have no argument with the above. It is a statement of pure
fact. You might regard it as irrelevant that some of us would
rather die than follow it. As I have said, (no, I did not prove
it, more on this later) there are many other ways to indicate
that pics, thumbnails in particular, are links. There are
situations where it simply does not matter because there are
clear alternative text links, these pic links being a faster and
easier way for those that might stumble or be savvy or be keen to
explore and hang about.

Why the personal comment?
Do you read my mind? over the internet? Your comment suggests that you
do not believe that I can reach, all by myself, my own conclusions on
webpage designs/decisions.

I greatly regretted this. I am sorry. I think it was a bad lunch,
Mr Flavell's clapping behaviour (which I dealt with first for
some reason) and a flaw in my character. Can you forgive me? I am
quite serious, it was unbecoming and rude.

A fairly clear case starts with an url, with concrete example, with a
demonstration, with a testcase, with something tangible that people can
see, can test, with a whole and complete webpage where anyone/everyone
can examine a webpage and then make up his mind, choose his side, choose
his webdesign "party", "orthodoxy", etc.. A fairly clear case does not
start with "Sometimes" and does not include "maybe", "perhaps", "could
be", "it's possible" and other general, abstract, hesitation vocabulary.

Furthermore, if you're bringing up the point of ugliness as something
that can override a general consistent web design principle that a very
wide majority of books, authors, gurus, usability studies agree on,
converge on. In other words, your "clear case" better show us a really
really *_ugly_* case of ugliness 2px thick blue border surrounding
thumbnail images.

Yes and no to this. Yes, if we had the time to write small
theses, these things could be thrashed out more thoroughly. I
admire your commitment to high ideals. But I have winced at too
many pages of thumbnails where it simply has not occured to the
writer that you can turn these useless _link_ borders off, it
being also blindingly obvious that they are thumbnails put there
for the purpose of clicking. I would supply chapter and verse if
I felt they were really needed. (I vaguely recall mentioning this
issue in response to actual sites that come up now and again in
this forum?)

There may be exceptions but, generally
speaking, following such rule - which is, I repeat, a sane, safe web
design of improving user experience, navigability and usability - is my
best recommendation. *My* recommendation.

OK. Fair enough. Let us agree at least that this is good advice
for an elementary course in web design. I am not patronising you
here, but making a serious point. It is quite common in courses
to be given certain safe rules that would stand people in good
stead till they understand better the issues surrounding it. It
is just that you and I differ from then on. You are more
sympathetic to there being such borders than me and are more
impressed with the reasons for them.

Some of this probably comes down to aesthetic taste. I do not say
that all link borders have to be ugly. They mostly are! But they
do not have to be. But, for them not to be, the designer needs to
think on how to make this so. He or she would need to think about
these borders and actually integrate them into a design where
they have a real aesthetic place. Do you know what I mean? I will
happily expand on this if you want, it is hugely interesting. I
am inclined to think it brings up less design problems, not more,
to generally leave them out!

You seem to be thinking along the lines of "Oh, they are not
naturally so ugly to start with" whereas I am thinking the very
opposite. Given this, it is natural for me to get a bit worried
about your "strong advice".

A serious attempt in a newsgroup starts with a real name too, Mr
dorayme. Lars Eighner once said in comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html
newsgroup:
"someone who refuses to identify himself [in discussion newsgroups]
cannot expect his opinions to count for anything."

I do not expect my opinion to count for anything based on any
reputation. You have a real name. What does it mean to me? You
are what your opinions are in this forum. I think your remark
here reveals a big mistake but I have been too rude already and
do not wish to offend you further.

Btw, I am not Mr. or Mrs. or Master or Miss dorayme. I am dorayme
and I say what I say and am what I am and inhabit (surely by now)
some of the best killfiles in the business.

 

[dorayme]

With neither quill nor qualm, dorayme quothed:


Hear hear! Give that lady a cigar!

I agree with you (for a change.) -And so do most web designers. Most
seem not to want the blight of a border on their images nor even the
focus ring. Yes, there are times when indicating link (or link vs.
visited) status is prudent or desirable, but more often than not the
clickable state of a thumbnail is (1) obvious in its own right, (2)
apparent from the pointer on hover, and (3) not even remotely obscure to
anyone who has surfed the Web for more than a few hours. Furthermore,
such a link is seldom critical to the page itself, although if it is,
associated content can easily and usually does make this obvious.

Common Boji, admit it, you don't so rarely agree with me! You
have basically accepted that you must one day meet Officer White
and much besides.

Actually I would bet quids on how the parties split on this issue
according to their taste in photography, painting, housing, and
maybe even movies and sheer technical knowledge of html and css.

 

[Neredbojias]

With neither quill nor qualm, Ed Mullen quothed:

FWIW, the applicable Mozilla preference setting is:

browser.display.focus_ring_width

default = 1 pixel, change to zero to turn off.

I'll have to check that out. Actually, I kinda like how ie does it now.
I _think_ you may have to turn it off first, but then it reappears only
when using the tab key. The advantage to this is it negates any reason
to use "onclick=this.blur();" in j/s code.

 

[Neredbojias]

With neither quill nor qualm, dorayme quothed:

Common Boji, admit it, you don't so rarely agree with me! You
have basically accepted that you must one day meet Officer White
and much besides.

You didn't respond to my o-so-delightful ode. C'mon now, admit it: it
was great!

Actually I would bet quids on how the parties split on this issue
according to their taste in photography, painting, housing, and
maybe even movies and sheer technical knowledge of html and css.

Yep. I am a purist in some areas, but that damn focus ring has
aggravated me from day one. As an option for these who need (or want)
it: great. Forced on everybody: horseshit.