<a name=foo> close?

This seems too simple by I can't find the answer.

Must <a name="foo"> be closed with </a> ?
Must it have content?

W3C says the content cannot be block so what if :

<a name="foo">
<h2>Foo Is Good</h2> ( a likely location )

Where does the closer </a> go?

<a name="foo">&nbsp;</a> is ok but uses a line
<h2>Foo Is Good</h2>

Mason C

Previously in comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, "Mason A. Clark"
<masoncERASETHIS (AT) ix (DOT) netcom.com> said:

Must <a name="foo"> be closed with </a> ?

Yes, according to the DTD.

Must it have content?

Yes, as above.

a name="foo"
h2>Foo Is Good</h2> ( a likely location )

How about:

<h2 id="foo">Foo Is Good</h2>

--
Mark Parnell
http://www.clarkecomputers.com.au

On 7-7-2005 9:07, Mason A. Clark wrote:

This seems too simple by I can't find the answer.

Must <a name="foo"> be closed with </a> ?
For HTML 4.01: Yes, "Start tag: required, End tag: required", see

<http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/links.html#edef-A>

Must it have content?
No, however "User agents should be able to find anchors created by empty

A elements, but some fail to do so."

W3C says the content cannot be block so what if :

a name="foo"
/a
h2>Foo Is Good</h2> ( a likely location )

Where does the closer </a> go?

a name="foo">&nbsp;</a> is ok but uses a line
h2>Foo Is Good</h2

How about

<h2><a name="foo">Foo Is Good</a></h2>

Mason C
--

Regards,

Roland de Ruiter
` ___ ___
`/__/ w_/ /__/
/ \ /_/ / \

Previously in comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, Mark Parnell
<webmaster (AT) clarkecomputers (DOT) com.au> said:

Previously in comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, "Mason A. Clark"
masoncERASETHIS (AT) ix (DOT) netcom.com> said:

Must it have content?

Yes, as above.

My bad. No, it doesn't have to have content.

--
Mark Parnell
http://www.clarkecomputers.com.au

On Thu, 07 Jul 2005 09:25:03 +0200, Roland <roland (AT) phony (DOT) biz> wrote:

On 7-7-2005 9:07, Mason A. Clark wrote:
This seems too simple by I can't find the answer.

Must <a name="foo"> be closed with </a> ?
For HTML 4.01: Yes, "Start tag: required, End tag: required", see
http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/links.html#edef-A
Must it have content?
No, however "User agents should be able to find anchors created by empty
A elements, but some fail to do so."

That's exactly what got me into this: - failure to find empty <a...></a>

<H2 id="fooname" .. has been suggested.

But the W3C site says:

"However, browser support for ID link destinations is very poor, so A NAME will
be needed for quite awhile. "

At the moment I'm stuck with <a name="foo">&nbsp;</a> and a line
used for the space.

Mason C

W3C says the content cannot be block so what if :

a name="foo"
/a
h2>Foo Is Good</h2> ( a likely location )

Where does the closer </a> go?

a name="foo">&nbsp;</a> is ok but uses a line
h2>Foo Is Good</h2

How about
h2><a name="foo">Foo Is Good</a></h2
Mason C

On Thu, 7 Jul 2005 17:17:47 +1000, Mark Parnell
<webmaster (AT) clarkecomputers (DOT) com.au> wrote:

Previously in comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, "Mason A. Clark"
masoncERASETHIS (AT) ix (DOT) netcom.com> said:

Must <a name="foo"> be closed with </a> ?

Yes, according to the DTD.

Must it have content?

Yes, as above.

a name="foo"
h2>Foo Is Good</h2> ( a likely location )

How about:

h2 id="foo">Foo Is Good</h2

see my comment in another post: W3C warns against this

On Thu, 7 Jul 2005, Mason A. Clark wrote:

This seems too simple by I can't find the answer.

Use a formal validator to verify the answers to most of your
questions.

Must <a name="foo"> be closed with </a> ?

yes.

Must it have content?

In theory "not necessarily", but some older browsers do require it or
they don't work. Whether you can be bothered to be compatible with
such older browsers is probably your choice now - some authors feel
that using the id= attribute on the appropriate element (in your case
the "h2") is now adequate and the use of "a name=" is a superfluous
compatibility feature, we can't tell you what your decision should be
on that, but let's assume that you still want to...

W3C says the content cannot be block

right, and so will a formal validator

so what if :

a name="foo"
h2>Foo Is Good</h2> ( a likely location )

Put <a name="foo" id="foo">...</a> inside the block element if you
want to cover all bases. One possibility would be:

<h2><a name="foo" id="foo">Foo Is Good</a></h2>

a name="foo">&nbsp;</a> is ok but uses a line

No need to invent fake content!

Watch your CSS styles - if you've specified a style for /all/ "a"
elements, then it's going to get applied to this "a" element too,
which might not be what you want. Use a:link etc. to make the styles
more selective.

hope this helps.

Mason A. Clark wrote:

On Thu, 07 Jul 2005 09:25:03 +0200, Roland <roland (AT) phony (DOT) biz> wrote:

On 7-7-2005 9:07, Mason A. Clark wrote:
This seems too simple by I can't find the answer.

Must <a name="foo"> be closed with </a> ?
For HTML 4.01: Yes, "Start tag: required, End tag: required", see
http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/links.html#edef-A
Must it have content?
No, however "User agents should be able to find anchors created by empty
A elements, but some fail to do so."

That's exactly what got me into this: - failure to find empty <a...></a

H2 id="fooname" .. has been suggested.

But the W3C site says:

"However, browser support for ID link destinations is very poor, so A NAME will
be needed for quite awhile. "

At the moment I'm stuck with <a name="foo">&nbsp;</a> and a line
used for the space.

Can't say I've found a user agent yet that fails to find <a id="foo"
name="foo"></a>. Anyone know which one would fail that?

--
Els http://locusmeus.com/
Sonhos vem. Sonhos vão. O resto é imperfeito.
- Renato Russo -
Now playing: Squeeze - Can of Worms

Mason A. Clark wrote:

"However, browser support for ID link destinations is very poor, so A NAME
will be needed for quite awhile. "

When was that document written? The last browser I know which didn't support
id in that way was Netscape 4.x.

--
David Dorward <http://blog.dorward.me.uk/> <http://dorward.me.uk/>
Home is where the ~/.bashrc is

Els <els.aNOSPAM (AT) tiscali (DOT) nl> wrote in
news:84v54bry5vkh.1nnl8wb24btdb.dlg (AT) 40tude (DOT) net:

Mason A. Clark wrote:
H2 id="fooname" .. has been suggested.

But the W3C site says:

"However, browser support for ID link destinations is very poor,
so A NAME will be needed for quite awhile. "


Can't say I've found a user agent yet that fails to find <a
id="foo" name="foo"></a>. Anyone know which one would fail that?

IIRC, Netscape 4. I didn't find the quoted page at W3C, but a similar
page at <http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/html40/special/a.html> is
dated from 1998, when NS4's various incompetencies would have merited a
warning like this.

--
Thomas Dowling
Ohio Library and Information Network