LINK, ALINK, VLINK colours don't behave

[Peter Charles]

I've set colours for LINK, ALINK, VLINK via a style sheet for anchors
that reference other URLs as well as internal references within the
same page. The colours of the external references work fine, however,
not so the internal references.

The internal references work properly once on a computer. So if I use
a computer for the first time, access a page with internal references,
the colours for LINK are displayed properly. Once I use that link, it
never displays the LINK colour again, only the VLINK colour. The LINK
colour will never appear again on that computer.

I need to have some way of refreshing the colours so that the LINK
returns to its proper colour.

Peter

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[Peter Charles]

I should add that this problem exists in IE6. I get the reverse
problem in Mozilla -- again, external references are fine but with
Mozilla, the colour always stays at the LINK setting and VLINK never
appears. In both cases, ALINK works fine.

Peter

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[PeterMcC]

Peter Charles wrote in

I've set colours for LINK, ALINK, VLINK via a style sheet for anchors
that reference other URLs as well as internal references within the
same page. The colours of the external references work fine, however,
not so the internal references.

The internal references work properly once on a computer. So if I use
a computer for the first time, access a page with internal references,
the colours for LINK are displayed properly. Once I use that link, it
never displays the LINK colour again, only the VLINK colour. The LINK
colour will never appear again on that computer.

Isn't that what they're supposed to do, unless the history is cleared?

 

[Dylan Parry]

Spake Peter Charles unto thee:

I've set colours for LINK, ALINK, VLINK via a style sheet for anchors
that reference other URLs as well as internal references within the same
page. The colours of the external references work fine, however, not so
the internal references.

I assume you've done this in the correct cascade order? (link, visited,
active, hover).

The internal references work properly once on a computer. So if I use a
computer for the first time, access a page with internal references, the
colours for LINK are displayed properly.

With you so far. Sounds about right.

Once I use that link, it never displays the LINK colour again, only the
VLINK colour. The LINK colour will never appear again on that computer.

This is normal behaviour. Once a link has been visited it is supposed to
show the a:visited colour and not the a:link colour. This will continue
to be the case until the visitor clears their history, or the history
entry for that link expires according to the browser settings.

I need to have some way of refreshing the colours so that the LINK
returns to its proper colour.

It _is_ it's proper colour. When a visitor has clicked a link they want to
know that they have, and you shouldn't try to change the behaviour of
their browser.

 

[Peter Charles]

It _is_ it's proper colour. When a visitor has clicked a link they want to
know that they have, and you shouldn't try to change the behaviour of
their browser.

OK, I wasn't concerned with changing it immediately, rather I would
have liked the external references and internal references to behave
the same. The external references behave as one would expect but the
internal references have this degree of permanence. One other
behaviour, once you visit one internal reference, exit the page, then
return, all internal references are the VLINK colour.

Peter

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[Peter Charles]

Peter Charles wrote in


Isn't that what they're supposed to do, unless the history is cleared?

I should have made it clearer that the external references behave
properly, the internal ones do not. I would like the internal
references to behave like the external ones.



Peter

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[Dylan Parry]

Spake Peter Charles unto thee:

OK, I wasn't concerned with changing it immediately, rather I would
have liked the external references and internal references to behave
the same. The external references behave as one would expect but the
internal references have this degree of permanence. One other
behaviour, once you visit one internal reference, exit the page, then
return, all internal references are the VLINK colour.

I knew what you meant, but it doesn't change anything - it's still normal
browser behaviour. The reason why you are seeing this behaviour is because
the fragment (bit after the #) is not part of the URL and so #marker1 and
#marker2 are not considered distinct history entries if part of the same
page.

This means that if you visited example.com/index.html#marker1 then
all the other anchors on the page that referenced other markers on the
page would also be shown as visited. This is because in essence you have
only visited the one page, index.html, and all those other links also
point to index.html - the fragment makes no difference whatsoever.

 

[Peter Charles]

Spake Peter Charles unto thee:


I assume you've done this in the correct cascade order? (link, visited,
active, hover).


With you so far. Sounds about right.


This is normal behaviour. Once a link has been visited it is supposed to
show the a:visited colour and not the a:link colour. This will continue
to be the case until the visitor clears their history, or the history
entry for that link expires according to the browser settings.


It _is_ it's proper colour. When a visitor has clicked a link they want to
know that they have, and you shouldn't try to change the behaviour of
their browser.

I should add that I didn't explain the Mozilla behaviour quite
correctly -- I shouldn't have relied on an old memory -- it retains
the LINK colour as long as you remain on that page. If you exit and
return, it displays the correct LINK and VLINK colours, as one would
expect them. While Mozilla doesn't behave correctly until an exit and
return, at least it is behaving close to what it should and it is
generally consistent between internal and external references. IE 6
is more of a problem.

Peter

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[Peter Charles]

Spake Peter Charles unto thee:


I knew what you meant, but it doesn't change anything - it's still normal
browser behaviour. The reason why you are seeing this behaviour is because
the fragment (bit after the #) is not part of the URL and so #marker1 and
#marker2 are not considered distinct history entries if part of the same
page.

This means that if you visited example.com/index.html#marker1 then
all the other anchors on the page that referenced other markers on the
page would also be shown as visited. This is because in essence you have
only visited the one page, index.html, and all those other links also
point to index.html - the fragment makes no difference whatsoever.

OK, got it. So I'm stuck with this beahviour -- no problem -- I was
just looking to have it behave consistently but your explanation ices
it.

Thanks



Peter

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[Dylan Parry]

Spake Peter Charles unto thee:

OK, got it. So I'm stuck with this beahviour -- no problem -- I was
just looking to have it behave consistently but your explanation ices
it.

No problem. The real problem here is that the specifications don't say
exactly what /should/ happen in this case, and so different browsers treat
it in different ways. I personally think that it would be a good idea if
browsers did treat markers within a page as separate URLs, but whether
others would agree with me or not is another matter entirely

 

[Spartanicus]

I should add that I didn't explain the Mozilla behaviour quite
correctly -- I shouldn't have relied on an old memory -- it retains
the LINK colour as long as you remain on that page. If you exit and
return, it displays the correct LINK and VLINK colours, as one would
expect them. While Mozilla doesn't behave correctly until an exit and
return, at least it is behaving close to what it should and it is
generally consistent between internal and external references. IE 6
is more of a problem.

Opera behaves properly with regard to marking internal links visited.

 

[Peter Charles]

Opera behaves properly with regard to marking internal links visited.

When I made my first post, I was under the impresion that it had been
some sort of error or ommission on my part but it turns out to be one
of those irritating browser dependent issues that we can do little
about.

Peter

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[Peter Charles]

Spake Peter Charles unto thee:


No problem. The real problem here is that the specifications don't say
exactly what /should/ happen in this case, and so different browsers treat
it in different ways. I personally think that it would be a good idea if
browsers did treat markers within a page as separate URLs, but whether
others would agree with me or not is another matter entirely

You'll have my vote.

Peter

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[Adrienne]

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed Dylan Parry

No problem. The real problem here is that the specifications don't say
exactly what /should/ happen in this case, and so different browsers
treat it in different ways. I personally think that it would be a good
idea if browsers did treat markers within a page as separate URLs, but
whether others would agree with me or not is another matter entirely

I absolutely agree with you. This behaivor is especially troublesome in
the case of a FAQ page, where the answers are on the same page as the
questions. I prefer the questions and answers all on the same page, as
sometimes, I like to check out other answers without having to go back to
the other questions first.

 

[Dan Abrey]

I've set colours for LINK, ALINK, VLINK via a style sheet for anchors
that reference other URLs as well as internal references within the
same page. The colours of the external references work fine, however,
not so the internal references.

The internal references work properly once on a computer. So if I use
a computer for the first time, access a page with internal references,
the colours for LINK are displayed properly. Once I use that link, it
never displays the LINK colour again, only the VLINK colour. The LINK
colour will never appear again on that computer.

I need to have some way of refreshing the colours so that the LINK
returns to its proper colour.

Couldn't you just set the a:visited attributes to the same as your link
attributes so that it doesn't change at all?

 

[Peter Charles]

Couldn't you just set the a:visited attributes to the same as your link
attributes so that it doesn't change at all?

Yes I could, but I see that as a work-around, not a solution. Judging
by the other replies, I intend to leave it as-is and let the various
browsers do with it as they will. If I was God of the Browsers, I'd
mandate a solution but that ain't gonna happen so . . . .

Peter

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[Mark Parnell]

I absolutely agree with you. This behaivor is especially troublesome in
the case of a FAQ page, where the answers are on the same page as the
questions. I prefer the questions and answers all on the same page, as
sometimes, I like to check out other answers without having to go back to
the other questions first.

In a situation like that, you haven't actually followed the links, but
you _have_ read the questions. Would you still expect the browser to
mark them as visited, or not?

 

[Nick Theodorakis]

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed Dylan Parry


I absolutely agree with you. This behaivor is especially troublesome in
the case of a FAQ page, where the answers are on the same page as the
questions. I prefer the questions and answers all on the same page, as
sometimes, I like to check out other answers without having to go back to
the other questions first.

I can never decide what the "correct" behavior ought to be. What I
really want is for the browser to read my mind and mark internal links
links as unvisited when I want them to be and visited when it's more
useful to be.

Nick

 

[Adrienne]

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed Mark Parnell

In a situation like that, you haven't actually followed the links, but
you _have_ read the questions. Would you still expect the browser to
mark them as visited, or not?

No, but once I have returned to the top of the document, I would at least
like to have a vague idea of where I was. If only one of the links is
marked visited, I have an idea of where I was. If all of them are, then
its hit and miss again.

For IE, say there are 20 questions and 20 answers. Once you click on a
link, and refresh or go to another URL, and come back, all the links are
visited. This does not happen in Opera, or Mozilla. I set up some test
documents at http://www.intraproducts.com/beta/usenet/vlink.asp

 

[Spartanicus]

For IE, say there are 20 questions and 20 answers. Once you click on a
link, and refresh or go to another URL, and come back, all the links are
visited. This does not happen in Opera, or Mozilla. I set up some test
documents at http://www.intraproducts.com/beta/usenet/vlink.asp

Mozilla doesn't handle this properly though:
http://www.pan-europe.utvinternet.ie/guides/extended_maintenance_schedule_km.htm
Click one of the "kilometer reading" links. Only Opera handles this
correctly.