#top anchor doesn"t work in FF

#top anchor doesn"t work in FF

am 31.10.2007 11:47:53 von Bernhard Sturm

Hi Group,
We are currently testing a site: http://wwwt.ichschweiz.admin.ch/ which
has a 'top of page' navigation at the bottom of each page (pointing to
an anchor at the top of the html-structure).
The problem is, that this 'top of page'-navigation doesn't seem to work
with Firefox (2.0.0.9 / Windows XP). IE has no problem with the link. I
am sure I made something wrong, but I can't figure out where I missed
the right turn. Could some of you have a look at it, and tell me where I
missed it?

Any help appreciated
Bernhard

--
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Re: #top anchor doesn"t work in FF

am 31.10.2007 13:24:14 von Harlan Messinger

Bernhard Sturm wrote:
>
> Hi Group,
> We are currently testing a site: http://wwwt.ichschweiz.admin.ch/ which
> has a 'top of page' navigation at the bottom of each page (pointing to
> an anchor at the top of the html-structure).
> The problem is, that this 'top of page'-navigation doesn't seem to work
> with Firefox (2.0.0.9 / Windows XP). IE has no problem with the link. I
> am sure I made something wrong, but I can't figure out where I missed
> the right turn. Could some of you have a look at it, and tell me where I
> missed it?

You have a div with id="top" and an anchor with name="top". This is
incorrect HTML:

http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/links.html#anchors-with-id

Firefox sees two different elements that could be the destination for
the link and therefore can't react to it. (The fact that they are nested
or adjacent is irrelevant.) IE probably handles the flawed code by
ignoring the A tag because by that point it has already registered the
DIV tag as the "top" element.

The solution is to take the ID off the DIV and stick it in the anchor:

Re: #top anchor doesn"t work in FF

am 31.10.2007 13:36:13 von Neredbojias

Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Wed, 31 Oct 2007 12:24:14
GMT Harlan Messinger scribed:

> Bernhard Sturm wrote:
>>
>> Hi Group,
>> We are currently testing a site: http://wwwt.ichschweiz.admin.ch/
>> which has a 'top of page' navigation at the bottom of each page
>> (pointing to an anchor at the top of the html-structure).
>> The problem is, that this 'top of page'-navigation doesn't seem to
>> work with Firefox (2.0.0.9 / Windows XP). IE has no problem with the
>> link. I am sure I made something wrong, but I can't figure out where
>> I missed the right turn. Could some of you have a look at it, and
>> tell me where I missed it?
>
> You have a div with id="top" and an anchor with name="top". This is
> incorrect HTML:
>
> http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/links.html#anchors-with-id
>
> Firefox sees two different elements that could be the destination for
> the link and therefore can't react to it. (The fact that they are
> nested or adjacent is irrelevant.) IE probably handles the flawed code
> by ignoring the A tag because by that point it has already registered
> the DIV tag as the "top" element.
>
> The solution is to take the ID off the DIV and stick it in the anchor:
>
>



Yes, and there's also something with the css/javascript display:none; on
the current "top" div. When I change things to:



and



....it works.

--
Neredbojias
Just a boogar in the proboscis of life.

Re: #top anchor doesn"t work in FF

am 31.10.2007 14:56:33 von lws4art

Harlan Messinger wrote:

> The solution is to take the ID off the DIV and stick it in the anchor:
>
>



Or better yet delete the superfluous empty DIV and empty A and



...

And either change following DIV's to "top" or change your "to top"
links' hrefs to "#accessibility".

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

Re: #top anchor doesn"t work in FF

am 31.10.2007 15:33:39 von Bernhard Sturm

Jonathan N. Little wrote:
> Harlan Messinger wrote:
>
>> The solution is to take the ID off the DIV and stick it in the anchor:
>>
>>


>
> Or better yet delete the superfluous empty DIV and empty A and

The page will not validate if the is not
nested within a div :-( I tried that already. Seems as HTML-strict will
not tolerate a structure like ->

>
>
>
>
...
>
> And either change following DIV's to "top" or change your "to top"
> links' hrefs to "#accessibility".
>

But then they wouldn't be working as #accessibility is not designed to
be shown on a visual UA.

cheers bernhard

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Re: #top anchor doesn"t work in FF

am 31.10.2007 15:35:08 von Bernhard Sturm

Neredbojias wrote:
> Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Wed, 31 Oct 2007 12:24:14
> GMT Harlan Messinger scribed:
>>
>> The solution is to take the ID off the DIV and stick it in the anchor:
>>
>>


>
> Yes, and there's also something with the css/javascript display:none; on
> the current "top" div. When I change things to:
>
>

>
> and
>
>

>
> ...it works.
>

You are right, I have changed it the way you suggested it. Now
everything seems to be okay.

Thanks for the help and enlightment.
Bernhard

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Re: #top anchor doesn"t work in FF

am 31.10.2007 16:11:46 von lws4art

sturm wrote:
> Jonathan N. Little wrote:
>> Harlan Messinger wrote:
>>
>>> The solution is to take the ID off the DIV and stick it in the anchor:
>>>
>>>


>>
>> Or better yet delete the superfluous empty DIV and empty A and
^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> The page will not validate if the is not
> nested within a div :-( I tried that already. Seems as HTML-strict will
> not tolerate a structure like ->


Of course not and inline element must be in a block element. I said
delete both.
>
>>
>>
>>

See I show it *all* commented out

>>
...
>>
>> And either change following DIV's to "top" or change your "to top"
>> links' hrefs to "#accessibility".
>>
>
> But then they wouldn't be working as #accessibility is not designed to
> be shown on a visual UA.

Then pick something at the top of the page that *is* shown on the visual UA:


....


--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

Re: #top anchor doesn"t work in FF

am 31.10.2007 16:34:19 von Bernhard Sturm

Jonathan N. Little wrote:
> sturm wrote:
>> Jonathan N. Little wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
> See I show it *all* commented out
>

yes... but if there's no anchor for #top what will the UA do? According
to the HTML-specs this is not defined. Only IE interprets a
href="#top">Top as a pointer to the top of the page, all others UA I
tested do ignore it if the appropriate anchor is missing.

>>>
>>> And either change following DIV's to "top" or change your "to top"
>>> links' hrefs to "#accessibility".
>>>
>>
>> But then they wouldn't be working as #accessibility is not designed to
>> be shown on a visual UA.
>
> Then pick something at the top of the page that *is* shown on the visual
> UA:
>
>


> ...
>
which would then irritate text only UA users, as they are no longer
taken to the top of their page, which is at #accessibility :-) sometimes
one has to trade off things...

but thanks for your suggestions
bernhard

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Re: #top anchor doesn"t work in FF

am 31.10.2007 19:33:29 von Neredbojias

Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Wed, 31 Oct 2007 14:35:08
GMT sturm scribed:

>>> The solution is to take the ID off the DIV and stick it in the
>>> anchor:
>>>
>>>


>>
>> Yes, and there's also something with the css/javascript display:none;
>> on the current "top" div. When I change things to:
>>
>>

>>
>> and
>>
>>
>>
>> ...it works.
>>
>
> You are right, I have changed it the way you suggested it. Now
> everything seems to be okay.
>
> Thanks for the help and enlightment.
> Bernhard

'Welcome. Bear in mind I wasn't/am not sure of the reason for the
"display:none;" on that div (via stylesheet) in the first place.

--
Neredbojias
Just a boogar in the proboscis of life.

Re: #top anchor doesn"t work in FF

am 31.10.2007 20:02:10 von lws4art

Bernhard Sturm wrote:
> Jonathan N. Little wrote:
>> sturm wrote:
>>> Jonathan N. Little wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>> See I show it *all* commented out
>>
>
> yes... but if there's no anchor for #top what will the UA do? According
> to the HTML-specs this is not defined. Only IE interprets a > href="#top">Top as a pointer to the top of the page, all others UA I
> tested do ignore it if the appropriate anchor is missing.
>
>>>>
>>>> And either change following DIV's to "top" or change your "to top"
>>>> links' hrefs to "#accessibility".
>>>>
>>>
>>> But then they wouldn't be working as #accessibility is not designed
>>> to be shown on a visual UA.

I think we have a failure to communicate here. My point is rather than
make an empty little DIV with a anchor (old way)



Just find some element on the top of your page, any element, does not
matter, just has to be at the top of your page. It may different
depending on each page's contents. Then if you wish to keep the anchor
name "top" than make then make the ID of that element "top" and it will
create a "top" anchor.

>>
>> Then pick something at the top of the page that *is* shown on the
>> visual UA:
>>
>>

>> ...
>>
> which would then irritate text only UA users, as they are no longer
> taken to the top of their page, which is at #accessibility :-) sometimes
> one has to trade off things...
>


But
*is* at the top of your page! So a link:

would take them to the top of the page.
There is nothing magical about the name "top", just it's location...


--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

Re: #top anchor doesn"t work in FF

am 31.10.2007 20:08:04 von jkorpela

Scripsit Bernhard Sturm:

> We are currently testing a site: http://wwwt.ichschweiz.admin.ch/
> which has a 'top of page' navigation at the bottom of each page
> (pointing to an anchor at the top of the html-structure).

Just remove those links. They are worse than useless. Every browser has a
simple command to get to the start of a page on _any_ page. Duplicating that
on a site-specific way just adds noise and pseudocontent and sometimes
confuses people. The main page is so short that the link looks particularly
pointless there. More arguments:
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www/totop.html

P.S. Do you use browser-sniffing? That's a problem, too. I get different
results (e.g. in date formats) when accessing the page on IE and on Lynx.

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

Re: #top anchor doesn"t work in FF

am 31.10.2007 20:25:56 von Bernhard Sturm

Neredbojias wrote:

>
> 'Welcome. Bear in mind I wasn't/am not sure of the reason for the
> "display:none;" on that div (via stylesheet) in the first place.
>

neither do I anymore :-)

bernhard

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Re: #top anchor doesn"t work in FF

am 31.10.2007 20:32:23 von Bernhard Sturm

Jonathan N. Little wrote:
>
> But

*is* at the top of your page! So a link:
>
> would take them to the top of the page.
> There is nothing magical about the name "top", just it's location...
>

I can see what you mean and I understand you perfectly :-)... but my
point is:
div id="outer" is *not* at the top of my page (from a visual UA only
standpoint it is, but you have to think at screen reader UAs). Look at
the source:



....

The top anchor needs to be _before_ the accessibility div but _not_
within the accessibility div... that's why there is a *superfluous*
empty div (as you put it) :-)

So my working structure is now:







I do admit: it looks awkward, but it serves its purpose...

cheers
bernhard

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Re: #top anchor doesn"t work in FF

am 31.10.2007 20:51:24 von lws4art

Bernhard Sturm wrote:
> Jonathan N. Little wrote:
>>
>> But

*is* at the top of your page! So a link:
>>
>> would take them to the top of the
>> page. There is nothing magical about the name "top", just it's
>> location...
>>
>
> I can see what you mean and I understand you perfectly :-)... but my
> point is:
> div id="outer" is *not* at the top of my page (from a visual UA only
> standpoint it is, but you have to think at screen reader UAs). Look at
> the source:
>
>
>

> ...
>
> The top anchor needs to be _before_ the accessibility div but _not_
> within the accessibility div... that's why there is a *superfluous*
> empty div (as you put it) :-)
>
> So my working structure is now:
>
>
>

>

>

>

>
> I do admit: it looks awkward, but it serves its purpose...



...

And anyway what is div "accessibility" for?

#accessibility {
position:absolute;
left:-1000em;
top:-1em;
display:none;
}

If you are not displaying it why bother with left:-1000em;?


--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

Re: #top anchor doesn"t work in FF

am 31.10.2007 20:55:15 von Bernhard Sturm

Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
>
> Just remove those links. They are worse than useless. Every browser has
> a simple command to get to the start of a page on _any_ page.
> Duplicating that on a site-specific way just adds noise and
> pseudocontent and sometimes confuses people. The main page is so short
> that the link looks particularly pointless there. More arguments:
> http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www/totop.html

I use FF. Which button would bring me to the top of a page? 'Home'
doesn't work, and what would be that button on an Apple computer having
one of those brand new Apple wireless keyboards? (They do not sport the
'Home'-Button on their keyboards). I have never met anybody (I mean not
a 'geek') knowing that there is a button or a shortcut bringing him/she
to the top of a page.

>
> P.S. Do you use browser-sniffing? That's a problem, too. I get different
> results (e.g. in date formats) when accessing the page on IE and on Lynx.
>
No, no browser sniffing... Server side I use the LocaleIDs of the UA via
ASP (ServerVariables("HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE")) in order to format date
stamps. But I believe it is not correctly working.

cheers for the remarks
bernhard

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Re: #top anchor doesn"t work in FF

am 31.10.2007 21:00:40 von Bernhard Sturm

Jonathan N. Little wrote:
>
>
>
>

...

but that again would not validate as it is not allowed to have an inline
element without a block element.

>
> And anyway what is div "accessibility" for?
>
> #accessibility {
> position:absolute;
> left:-1000em;
> top:-1em;
> display:none;
> }
>
> If you are not displaying it why bother with left:-1000em;?
>

:-) I don't want to offer visual UA users access to navigational aids
such as 'jump directly to content' or 'jump to the news' as they can use
the mouse to do this but text only UAs (as smartphone users) should have
this links.

bernhard

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Re: #top anchor doesn"t work in FF

am 31.10.2007 21:01:48 von Bernhard Sturm

Bernhard Sturm wrote:
> Jonathan N. Little wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>

...
>
> but that again would not validate as it is not allowed to have an inline
> element without a block element.

ahh forget my comment. Of course you are right :-) does that work with
all browser? id as an anchor?

bernhard

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Re: #top anchor doesn"t work in FF

am 31.10.2007 22:00:53 von dorayme

In article <4728df2e$1_3@news.bluewin.ch>,
Bernhard Sturm wrote:

> Bernhard Sturm wrote:
> > Jonathan N. Little wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>

...
> >
> > but that again would not validate as it is not allowed to have an inline
> > element without a block element.
>
> ahh forget my comment. Of course you are right :-) does that work with
> all browser? id as an anchor?
>
> bernhard

id works well enough in all modern browsers to identify a page
point. That does not mean all modern browsers do exactly the same
thing. Make yourself a test page and try it in different browsers
when the ids are in different positions. My rough impression is
that if the link is anywhere but in the bottom "less than a
browser-height-worth" of a page, clicking it will bring the id
point to the top. A good place to put such ids are in headings.
The found point then look natural.

(iCab has the clever little enhancement of briefly flashing a
subdued elegantly colour horizontal gradient background to the
point concerned - which is helpful when the point is not at the
very top of the browser window)

--
dorayme

Re: #top anchor doesn"t work in FF

am 31.10.2007 22:16:56 von jkorpela

Scripsit Bernhard Sturm:

> I use FF. Which button would bring me to the top of a page? 'Home'
> doesn't work,

It works in typical situations. If you have an untypical situation, you
should find out what works there - if you think that it is important to be
able to get to the start of a page quickly. After all, other sites don't
have the same kind of button as yours, and most of them (wisely) don't have
any "to top" button.

> I have never met anybody
> (I mean not a 'geek') knowing that there is a button or a shortcut
> bringing him/she to the top of a page.

Really? Anyway, I expect all users to know how to move forward and backward
on a page. (Or should all authors also add "Click here to move forward" etc.
buttons? :-) )Whether they know the obvious shortcuts like Home and End key
is a matter of convenience, and knowing them surely helps more than learning
to find different strange "to top" buttons on miscellaneous pages.

>> P.S. Do you use browser-sniffing? That's a problem, too. I get
>> different results (e.g. in date formats) when accessing the page on
>> IE and on Lynx.
> No, no browser sniffing... Server side I use the LocaleIDs of the UA
> via ASP (ServerVariables("HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE")) in order to format
> date stamps. But I believe it is not correctly working.

The very idea is incorrect. When your page is in German, the dates in its
content should follow whatever conventions you regard as applicable to the
German language. The browser settings in a visitor's browser are irrelevant.
Specifically, check what the Accept-Language request header is for. It is
for selecting among different language versions of a page (when the same
content exists in different languages). It is not meant for mixing, say,
Chinese or Arabic or Finnish date notations into the content of a page in
German.

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

Re: #top anchor doesn"t work in FF

am 01.11.2007 02:11:30 von Frederick

On Oct 31, 7:08 pm, "Jukka K. Korpela" wrote:

> Scripsit Bernhard Sturm:
>
> > We are currently testing a site: http://wwwt.ichschweiz.admin.ch/
> > which has a 'top of page' navigation at the bottom of each page
> > (pointing to an anchor at the top of the html-structure).
>
> Just remove those links. They are worse than useless. Every browser has a
> simple command to get to the start of a page on _any_ page. Duplicating that
> on a site-specific way just adds noise and pseudocontent and sometimes
> confuses people. The main page is so short that the link looks particularly
> pointless there. More arguments:
> http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www/totop.html

You make some reasonable points on your page there, but I don't
believe many surfers are aware of the more common keyboard
"shortcuts".

Perhaps I'm missing an obvious problem through it being late in the
day here, but what about using:

as a solution, where "filename.html" is the name of the page upon
which the link appears? That way the focussing changes, the URL
doesn't get altered, and the page scrolls to the absolute top. Works
in Firefox and IE, and I can't see at quick glance that it would fail
in any other visual browser.


--
AGw.

Re: #top anchor doesn"t work in FF

am 01.11.2007 02:21:28 von Frederick

On Oct 31, 9:16 pm, "Jukka K. Korpela" wrote:

> Scripsit Bernhard Sturm:
>
> > Somebody whose handle has been snipped wrote:
> >
> > > P.S. Do you use browser-sniffing? That's a problem, too. I get
> > > different results (e.g. in date formats) when accessing the page on
> > > IE and on Lynx.
> >
> > No, no browser sniffing... Server side I use the LocaleIDs of the UA
> > via ASP (ServerVariables("HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE")) in order to format
> > date stamps. But I believe it is not correctly working.
>
> The very idea is incorrect. When your page is in German, the dates in its
> content should follow whatever conventions you regard as applicable to the
> German language.

What you're suggesting isn't correct, either; date format is not
simply determined by language. I believe that German and Italian
could be treated in this way, but I'm not sure about French, and it's
definitely not true for English. Spanish would also be a problem, if
I recall correctly, although it's not of course one of the languages
used by the particular site in question.


--
AGw.

Re: #top anchor doesn"t work in FF

am 01.11.2007 09:55:06 von Bernhard Sturm

Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
> Scripsit Bernhard Sturm:
>
>> I use FF. Which button would bring me to the top of a page? 'Home'
>> doesn't work,
>
> It works in typical situations. If you have an untypical situation, you
> should find out what works there - if you think that it is important to
> be able to get to the start of a page quickly. After all, other sites
> don't have the same kind of button as yours, and most of them (wisely)
> don't have any "to top" button.

It didn't work on your page where you suggest to use the home button:
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www/totop.html
Does it work with your browser?

It works for:
- Safari 3.0.3
- IE 6.02
- Opera 9.01
- Lynx

But _not_ in FF 2.0.0.8 and of course never on Apple keyboards where the
'Home' button is missing.
So this is not exactly a valid cross-brower approach to rely solely on
the hope that the UA has implemented this feature.


>>> P.S. Do you use browser-sniffing? That's a problem, too. I get
>>> different results (e.g. in date formats) when accessing the page on
>>> IE and on Lynx.
>> No, no browser sniffing... Server side I use the LocaleIDs of the UA
>> via ASP (ServerVariables("HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE")) in order to format
>> date stamps. But I believe it is not correctly working.
>
> The very idea is incorrect. When your page is in German, the dates in
> its content should follow whatever conventions you regard as applicable
> to the German language. The browser settings in a visitor's browser are
> irrelevant. Specifically, check what the Accept-Language request header
> is for. It is for selecting among different language versions of a page
> (when the same content exists in different languages). It is not meant
> for mixing, say, Chinese or Arabic or Finnish date notations into the
> content of a page in German.

But the page in question is in 4 different languages available (have you
noticed the language selector?). Hence the use of HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE.
But I might drop the concept anyway, as it is not working correctly.

Cheers
Bernhard



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Re: #top anchor doesn"t work in FF

am 01.11.2007 09:59:49 von Bernhard Sturm

AGw. (Usenet) wrote:
> On Oct 31, 9:16 pm, "Jukka K. Korpela" wrote:

>> The very idea is incorrect. When your page is in German, the dates in its
>> content should follow whatever conventions you regard as applicable to the
>> German language.
>
> What you're suggesting isn't correct, either; date format is not
> simply determined by language. I believe that German and Italian
> could be treated in this way, but I'm not sure about French, and it's
> definitely not true for English. Spanish would also be a problem, if
> I recall correctly, although it's not of course one of the languages
> used by the particular site in question.
>

you are right: date format is mainly determined by the country and not
by the language as Jukka suggested. That's why you should get different
date formats for the English language version. That was my original
idea, but as stated in another post: it doesn't work satisfyingly
enough, so I drop the entire concept of dynamically offer a correct date
format stamp for all users.

bernhard

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Re: #top anchor doesn"t work in FF

am 01.11.2007 10:22:26 von Ben C

On 2007-11-01, Bernhard Sturm wrote:
> AGw. (Usenet) wrote:
>> On Oct 31, 9:16 pm, "Jukka K. Korpela" wrote:
>
>>> The very idea is incorrect. When your page is in German, the dates in its
>>> content should follow whatever conventions you regard as applicable to the
>>> German language.
>>
>> What you're suggesting isn't correct, either; date format is not
>> simply determined by language. I believe that German and Italian
>> could be treated in this way, but I'm not sure about French, and it's
>> definitely not true for English. Spanish would also be a problem, if
>> I recall correctly, although it's not of course one of the languages
>> used by the particular site in question.
>>
>
> you are right: date format is mainly determined by the country and not
> by the language as Jukka suggested. That's why you should get different
> date formats for the English language version. That was my original
> idea, but as stated in another post: it doesn't work satisfyingly
> enough, so I drop the entire concept of dynamically offer a correct date
> format stamp for all users.

But that's even more confusing. If I'm reading what I think is a US
English page I expect US English date formats and so even though I am
not American I know that "9-11" doesn't mean the 9th of November.

But then there will be other readers blissfully ignorant of the fact
that there are different date formats at all. So inevitably there will
always be some confused readers.

So just use iso-8601. It's the only way out.

Re: #top anchor doesn"t work in FF

am 01.11.2007 12:32:11 von Harlan Messinger

Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
> Scripsit Bernhard Sturm:
>
>> I use FF. Which button would bring me to the top of a page? 'Home'
>> doesn't work,
>
> It works in typical situations.

If you mean the "Home" button on the typical browser toolbar, in typical
situations it takes you to whatever you have set up as your home page,
not to the top of the current page. If you mean the Home key on the
keyboard, the convenience of the "Top" link on a web page is that it
avoids one trip back to the keyboard for someone who is navigating
primarily by mouse. Especially on a page with a lot of sections and a
guide at the top consisting of links to the sections, such as a FAQ
page, a user can find this helpful for bouncing back and forth between
the guide and arbitrary page sections. In that case, the Back button on
the toolbar will work as well, but only if the user went down the page
by using one of the links in the guide; otherwise, he'll wind up on the
previous page.

Of course, the user can keep dragging the scrollbar back to the top, but
that takes more effort.

> If you have an untypical situation, you
> should find out what works there - if you think that it is important to
> be able to get to the start of a page quickly. After all, other sites
> don't have the same kind of button as yours,

That's the argument for not replacing a standard widget (such as a
scrollbar or a drop-down list) with one that more or less duplicates its
core functionality but looks or behaves differently from the standard
one: it can be confusing. In this case, there's no potential for
confusion. A user sees a link reading "Top" or "Back to Top", perhaps
with a graphic upward arrow and, by virtue of being literate, knows
instantly what it means, regardless of the details of its appearance; or
else the user doesn't notice it, but in that case the presence of the
link doesn't hinder the user from returning to the top of the page using
the usual built-in means.

Re: #top anchor doesn"t work in FF

am 01.11.2007 22:39:21 von dorayme

In article <4729946b$1_4@news.bluewin.ch>,
Bernhard Sturm wrote:

> Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
> > Scripsit Bernhard Sturm:
> >
> >> I use FF. Which button would bring me to the top of a page? 'Home'
> >> doesn't work,
> >
> > It works in typical situations. If you have an untypical situation, you
> > should find out what works there - if you think that it is important to
> > be able to get to the start of a page quickly. After all, other sites
> > don't have the same kind of button as yours, and most of them (wisely)
> > don't have any "to top" button.
>
> It didn't work on your page where you suggest to use the home button:
> http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www/totop.html
> Does it work with your browser?
>
> It works for:
> - Safari 3.0.3
> - IE 6.02
> - Opera 9.01
> - Lynx
>
> But _not_ in FF 2.0.0.8 and of course never on Apple keyboards where the
> 'Home' button is missing.

Many Apple keyboards have the Home key. Also the useful page up
and down keys and the arrows for scrolling. And the Home button
*does* work in FF 2.0.0.8 on a Mac

I used to put in some go to top links in pages about have given
up. A part from the pretty good arguments of JK, one of the
reasons that impressed me that it was a bit hopeless, was that
there is no end to the demands for this sort of thing:

(1) In general, when do you stop duplicating broswer functions

(2) When do you stop putting to top links on one long page. At
the bottom seems a bit miserly, user might well want to go to the
top before getting to the end. So... where? Every possible
screenful? Bah!

But just purely for interest here, a more sensible way perhaps,
if you must have an aid in a very long doc, how about a 100% page
high longitudinal link. A vertical continuous bar that is a
"magic ladder" up to the top. It runs down the whole side of the
page. All sorts of ways to do this...

--
dorayme