[thelist] Oddness with link names...

[Joe Crawford]

JTocher wrote:
> Hoping someone can shed some light on a puzzling issue...
> 
> Why, oh why, does a 'hover' *not* work on the following urls
> 
> <a href="http://webserver.ortn.edu">ORS home</a> &#149;
> <a href="http://jms.ortn.edu">Jefferson Middle</a> &#149;
> 
> but it *does* on the following:
> 
> <a href="http://rms.ortn.edu">Robertsville Middle</a> &#149;
> <a href="http://orhs.ortn.edu">Oak Ridge High</a>
> 
> Using *very* basic styles as follows:
> 
> a:link { color: #d9d9d9; text-decoration: none }
> a:hover { color: #d9d9d9; text-decoration: underline }
> a:visited { color: #d9d9d9; text-decoration: none }
> 
> Will sincerely appreciate any insight!

Because you /visited/ the first two, but had not visited the second two
(yet).

Remember that "C" in "CSS" - the cascade. In the CSS snippet you
provide, styles will be applied where applicable. When you visit a site,
you activate the "visited" pseudoclass - and overwrite the "hover"
pseudoclass.

To get around this, you should put the hover /last/. That way you always
get the hover.

You do realize, of course, that you're making /all/ the links look alike
that way. Always consider the value of showing people what links they
have visited and weight it against other design goals.

I use a slight perversion of the bug you came across here:
	http://www.artlung.com/blog/

In this way I get "two" hovers - one for visited links, and for
unvisited links. By purposefully ordering them the way I do I get a
simple underline hover for visited, and a reversed out effect for new
links. For some instances, this would be distracting, but for this use,
it works.

HTH,

	Joe <http://artlung.com/>
-- 
...................  Joe Crawford \\ Web Design & Development
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