Bug#613946: debian-policy: anchor issues in HTML version

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

reopen 616042
retitle 616042 debiandoc2html: title attribute of <link> tags must be plain text
severity 616042 wishlist
tags 616042 + wontfix
retitle 613946 Debian policy should use DocBook XML for source
quit

Hi Osamu,

Osamu Aoki wrote:

>  http://wiki.debian.org/DocbookXmlTransition

Thanks, I didn't know about that page.  I agree that it's not worth
spending time on other aspects.  So please feel free to ignore the
rest of this message. ;-)

> On Tue, Mar 01, 2011 at 10:24:05PM -0600, Jonathan Nieder wrote:

>> retitle -1 debiandoc2html: <link> titles should not have embedded tags
>
> What debiandoc2html should do as default is pure taste issue.
> I know there have been many flip-flopping.  Its enough.
> The user of debiandoc2html can disable this by using -L option.

I think you might have misunderstood the bug.  I am very happy that
the <link> tags are included; the only problem is that the "title"
attribute contains embedded tags.  As the HTML standard explains:

	The title attribute gives the title of the link. With one
	exception, it is purely advisory. The value is text.

All user agents I know that display the "title" attribute do display
it as plain text.

That said, I would agree with calling it wishlist/wontfix.  I'm
reopening the bug for documentation, so people looking at the BTS can
find another reason to switch to docbook.

> There are some console browsers such as w3m which can
> handle this OK.

That sounds like a bug in w3m, then.  Though I do not actually see the
<link> tags when I open policy in w3m --- are you sure w3m even tries
to handle this?

> If you can cite some RFC
> etc., then this is real minor bug otherwise this is wishlist bug which I
> will mark as wontfix since I am not going to change this old program's
> behavior any more unless it is gross problem.  Until I get clear
> argument, I am marking this as wishlist/wontfix so I will not get
> similar complain.

All the examples of anchor targets (<a name="foo">) in the HTML
standard use it to enclose some descriptive text or similar content.
Christoph's example of using a stylesheet to highlight link targets
certainly puts it in the realm of what the WCAG are supposed to
describe.  But I admit, I cannot find any document that comes out and
says so.

> I should say the more useful wishlist bug is "debian-policy should use
> DocBook XML for source" :-)

*nod*  Now that the debiandoc side has been nicely filed away, I'm
retitling the bug.  Hint to anyone working on this: the debconf spec
is already DocBook XML, so you can steal its rules.

Thanks for a thorough response.

Jonathan