Re: little extension of BLink

Hi Thorsten,

At 09:41 AM 10/29/2003 +0100, you wrote:
>Hello!
>
>It would be useful to have some new constants in BLink component for
>convenience on get/setTarget():
>public static final String TARGET_BLANK = "_blank";
>public static final String TARGET_PARENT = "_parent";
>public static final String TARGET_SELF = "_self";
>public static final String TARGET_TOP = "_top";

I can kind of see the point of this.  However, these values are not defined 
by the HTML4.01 spec that I can find.  They seem to be supported by the 
various browsers, but are not a standard.  In most cases, this use of the 
target attribute should be replaced with scripting anyway, especially in 
the case of "_blank" such as...

<a href="foo.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">Foo</a>

Also note that the case for having get/setTarget() in BLink is a 
questionable one.  Take note of the examples described (in the Javadoc) for 
BLink's use; <a>, <input>, and <button>.  Now look at what the W3C says 
where the "target" attribute can be used; <a>, <area>, <base>, <form>, 
<link>.  Notice the absence of <input> and <button> in that list and the 
inclusion of <form>.  So, two of the main cases for using BLink don't allow 
for using the "target" attribute, even though BLink supports setting it and 
one of the places that isn't mentioned for using BLink (<form>) suppports 
the "target" attribute, but it doesn't make sense to get/setText() on a 
<form>.  In fact, the only tag that matches up completely with BLink's full 
functionality is <a>.  With the rest of them, it either doesn't make sense 
to use get/setText() or get/setTarget().  Well, I suppose it is a 
compromise to be able to reuse BComponents rather than having a BComponent 
for every tag, but it does require diligence on the developer's part to 
keep from generating illegal markup.

Anyway, Christian, what do you think about adding these to BLink?  I 
wouldn't oppose it if it is wanted by others on the list, but I also don't 
see the necessity of it.

Jake