Bugzilla – Bug 141494
Links on Novell websites are not recognizable
Last modified: 2009-01-13 00:34:48 UTC
Q: What do have easter eggs and links on any Novell web site have in common? A: You have to search for them... ;-) To be serious: It's very difficult to find links on a Novell website (including bugzilla, SDB, ... - in short: *.novell.com) because they do not differ from the normal text: same font, same color, no underline - only a :hover effect that shows you you found another easter egg^W^Wlink :-/ That makes navigating very hard and even annoying if you expect something to be a link, but it isn't. Or you don't find some information because you didn't find the relevant link. I would highly recommend to change the default formatting of links. Change the color, underline it by default, do what you want - but *please* make links looking different to normal text. (I know this might not be the correct place to report this, but I don't know a better one for now ;-)
Christian: Please submit comments about *.novell.com using the feedback link at the bottom of the page. The feedback link is *not* a black hole. :-) I'm not aware of any "easter egg" links on bugzilla.novell.com -- please enter a new bug (opensuse/bugzilla) and attach screenshots. Please circle the easter eggs or do something to show us what you mean. Marking this bug invalid, because there's nowhere for it to go. :-)
As I described: It's very difficult to see what is a link because links look like normal text as long as you don't touch them with the mouse. This means that there's a very bad usability: - you overlook (possibly helpful) links - or - - you click on text which is not a link (Ironically, visited links can be found easier because they change color...) Screenshots of this bugreport ;-) follow.
Created attachment 62230 [details] Screenshot: bug overview In this screenshot you see the bug overview with all links highlighted using yellow background. OK, the navigation (first, ...) is quite logical because you expect it to be clickable. The "related people" mail adresses are also clickable - you might at least guess they are links. Same goes for "Edit Bug Attributes", ... - they look like commands. "[reply]" also looks like a command. Up to now, it's at least not too hard to guess what is a link because it's more or less logical. But I guess nobody thinks that "Description" is a link.
Created attachment 62232 [details] Screenshot: bug attributes OK, now let's have a look at the "but attributes" section - it's worse than the bug overview section. Some of the fields have a clickable title which opens an explanation of the field. Other fields don't have an explanation and are not clickable therefore. Optical difference: none! :-( The two persons listed (Assigned To, Reporter) also differ - one has a clickable mailto: link, the other is plain text. Guess how many people tried to click the name in "Assigned to"... (because all other persons are linked to their mail adress - logical, isn't it?)
To see how you could make it better, change your /etc/hosts: 127.0.0.1 localhost secure-www.novell.com and press "reload" in your browser. This disables the CSS used for link formatting so that you can actually *see* the links without guessing. Now tell me what you think about this from a usability point of view, please ;-)
Thank you for your contribution. I think there is a changed setting in the browser. You can activate the "underline links" option in your browser and you will see the links. This should be the default setting for the browsers. If not please write a new bug entry. Close.
(In reply to comment #6) > I think there is a changed setting in the browser. You can activate the > "underline links" option in your browser and you will see the links. Yes, but... > This should be the default setting for the browsers. If not please write a > new bug entry. This is *not* the default setting - at least in Konqueror (just tested with a newly created user). Additionally, you should not make usability dependend on browser settings - independent if default or not. "Please change your browser settings to be able to use our page" sounds like "this page is designed for browser 'foo' (and all others are blocked)"... HTML/CSS should never depend on browser defaults (or use *all* browser defaults - see "default link color"). If you override the link colors using CSS and set it to the text color, you also SHOULD force links to be underlined. Really. Re-assigning this bug to component bugzilla - and taking you into CC since I consider this a usability issue. If you don't think so, feel free to remove yourself from CC.
Sorry, Christian, but I have never encountered those problems either with a default Mozilla/Firefox nor with Konqueror. I never had to touch the configuration in order to make links visible. Which version of SUSE Linux do you use? This problem is limited to Konqueror only I suppose?
I investigated a little and it appears that the standard-settings don't overwrite the CSS defaults, which does not underline links. The KDE-maintainers should comment on this.
hmm, I'm undecided. It does make sense to let the user be able to overwrite the link settings, but on the other side whenever we changed it to that behaviour then people complained about web sites looking different in konqueror than in other browsers.
Created attachment 62688 [details] Bug overview in firefox Here is what the screen looks like for me in firefox. We also test these pages in Konqueror and I have not modified any of the settings from their defaults. You will note that the links are underlined.
so? the bugreport was about www.novell.com. as you test with konqueror you know that the website of bugzilla.novell.com looks identical in konqueror and in firefox regarding links.
I'm not seeing any of the problems described using Konqueror 3.2.1 on NLD9 SP2. I'm also not seeing any of the problems described using Konqueror 3.4.0 on SUSE Linux 9.3. All Konqueror settings are default.
I'm currently using SUSE Linux 10.0 + KDE 3.5 from supplementary. BTW: In Mozilla, the links are underlined only if I have the "underline links" setting activated. (I don't know if this is default or not.) My original question remains: what's so hard about adding a a {text-decoration: underline} in the CSS? This way, the page will no longer depend on browser configuration and always display like you want it to.
It's a valid point, this should be added at least for bugzilla.novell.com, so the standard configuration of the browsers don't need to be touched. Klaas: Whom could I assign this, can you help us here?
I do not see the point. Vance gave you the answer already in comment #1, you should use the feedback button at the bottom of the page.
Christian: As Klaas (and others) suggested: Please use the feedback-link, those people would have to change this. You can point them to this discussion here. Please understand that I know have to close this bug. Most of the involved people (inlcuding me) were not able to verify this problem. After all, this really is more a feedback/suggestion issue than a real bug.
(In reply to comment #17) > After all, this really is more a feedback/suggestion issue than a real bug. I don't agree on that (I consider it a bug in the CSS code) - but I guess you already knew that ;-) I just entered this issue using the feedback-link. Let's see what happens ;-)