What does this do?

[Big Bill]

onfocus="this.blur()"

It's in all the urls. I can't see that it does anything. I've looked
at it in IE6 and Slimbrowser. It just seems to take up space and,
since I've been explicitly ordered to reduce the urls as much as
possible....I think I should just bin it whenever I find it. Good idea
or not?

BB

 

[Ryan Stewart]

onfocus="this.blur()"

It's in all the urls. I can't see that it does anything. I've looked
at it in IE6 and Slimbrowser. It just seems to take up space and,
since I've been explicitly ordered to reduce the urls as much as
possible....I think I should just bin it whenever I find it. Good idea
or not?

BB

onfocus: when this link/control/part of the page gets clicked on (receives
the focus)
this.blur(): remove the focus from this link/control/part of the page

It's probably there to keep the dotted outline from showing on a link after
you click it in IE.

 

[Jukka K. Korpela]

It's probably there to keep the dotted outline from showing on a link
after you click it in IE.

It also prevents people using keyboard-only access from following the
link. When they tab to the link, they can normally hit the enter key to
follow the link - but onfocus="this.blur()" removes the focus before they
do that.

Using the nonstandard hidefocus attribute is a less destructive method of
hiding the focus outline. However it has the drawback of "working" even
when JavaScript is disabled.

Removing the attributes is thus probably a good idea, but we cannot
really _know_ that without seeing the URL. There _might_ be situations
where the attribute does something useful, or at least harmless.

 

[Steve Pugh]

onfocus="this.blur()"

It's in all the urls. I can't see that it does anything.

Try tabbing through the links in IE. On a normal web page a dotted
rectangle appears around each link. On a web page with the above on
every link it doesn't.

It just seems to take up space and,
since I've been explicitly ordered to reduce the urls as much as
possible....I think I should just bin it whenever I find it. Good idea
or not?

Good idea. It harms accessibility by making it harder for people who
navigate via the keyboard rather than the mouse to use the page.

Steve

 

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Quoth the raven named Big Bill:

I've looked at it in IE6 and Slimbrowser.

Since, AFAIK, Slimbrowser is just a shell for IE, why not get a couple
of other browsers? Some sites look markedly different in, say, a Gecko
browser. For starters:

http://mozilla.org/
http://mozilla.org/products/firefox/
http://www.opera.com/

 

[Big Bill]

Quoth the raven named Big Bill:


Since, AFAIK, Slimbrowser is just a shell for IE, why not get a couple
of other browsers? Some sites look markedly different in, say, a Gecko
browser. For starters:

http://mozilla.org/
http://mozilla.org/products/firefox/
http://www.opera.com/

Actually I already have those, and for a while I had Avant too but it
tends to dominate so I dumped it. I'll take a peek. We shouldn't
forget Netscape either now that AOL are giving it mouth-to-mouth.

BB

 

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Quoth the raven named Big Bill:

On Mon, 26 Apr 2004 13:56:55 GMT, "Beauregard T. Shagnasty"


Actually I already have those, and for a while I had Avant too but it
tends to dominate so I dumped it. I'll take a peek. We shouldn't
forget Netscape either now that AOL are giving it mouth-to-mouth.

I can forget Netscape. <g> Their versions tend to be bloated with many
megabytes of AOL crap. The forthcoming 7.2 is supposedly only an
update to the 1.6 engine.

 

[C A Upsdell]

Quoth the raven named Big Bill:
I can forget Netscape. <g> Their versions tend to be bloated with many
megabytes of AOL crap. The forthcoming 7.2 is supposedly only an
update to the 1.6 engine.

7.1 is based on the 1.4 engine. The next version (7.2?) will be based on
1.7.

 

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Quoth the raven named C A Upsdell:

7.1 is based on the 1.4 engine. The next version (7.2?) will be
based on 1.7.

Ok, that's good. I'm pretty sure I had read somewhere 7.2 was to be
the 1.6 engine, but perhaps they've delayed it a bit to take advantage
of the forthcoming 1.7. Thanks.