In my search for (what I consider) a good ASP.NET menu control, I have discovered more of what I hate most about the AJAX 'explosion'...
Fake hyperlinks.
I'm interested in people's views on this...
I expect, whenever I see the little "hand" icon (indicating a link, is it not?), to also see a URL in the status bar, and my browsers standard right-click context menu (open in new window, copy link location, etc).
It strikes me as absolutely disgracefuly lazy development to ignore that functionality.
IMO, if any content which is accessed via a 'click' action is not intended to be "permalinked" (eg, a tab in a block of dynamic AJAX content), then the element the users performs the 'click' motion on should not be considered a hyperlink, and should not display the "hyperlink hand"... it's a button.
So far I have found over 15 ASP.NET menu controls, 9 of which claim to "implement the highest accessability standards", yet all 15 produce fake hyperlinks...
Are fake hyperlinks destroying accessability?
And how about some definitions of a "fake hyperlink".
I consider a fake hyperlink _anything_ which does not give the user the EXACT same experience of an old fashion
<a href="" HERE</a> hyperlink.
Even dynamically creating A elements and adding them to the DOM delivers this same experience, so what not do it?
Is there any advantages to using dynamically altering page location (document.href, etc) ?
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