7 votes

Chrome now supports linking to "Text Fragments", which will automatically scroll to and highlight specific text on a page

4 comments

  1. [3]
    admicos
    Link
    Another feature Google decided to go ahead with without caring about any other browser. They could've disabled it by default and added a flag for developers willing to test it out until everyone...

    Another feature Google decided to go ahead with without caring about any other browser. They could've disabled it by default and added a flag for developers willing to test it out until everyone had an implementation ready.

    In a couple of days/weeks when the majority of Chrome users update to version 80, expect their documentation sites and especially Google Search to use this feature immediately. Because who cares about the people who don't use Chrome?

    4 votes
    1. [2]
      Deimos
      Link Parent
      Yeah, this is a pretty weird one. I understand the desire to move the web's capabilities forward without always getting mired in endless debates about changes, but stuff like this feels like going...

      Yeah, this is a pretty weird one. I understand the desire to move the web's capabilities forward without always getting mired in endless debates about changes, but stuff like this feels like going too far to me.

      There are now going to be links that take a user to completely different sections of a page depending on whether they're using Chrome or not. Unless the other browsers implement it (and they may basically be forced to), people doing things "properly" will always need to post links like "here's a link to the relevant part of the article, but if you're not using Chrome you'll need to search for this phrase: ...".

      It adds some weird considerations, and there will be some other ones too, like having links suddenly stop working correctly if the target page changes the wording of a phrase that's been linked to.

      2 votes
      1. admicos
        Link Parent
        They will be forced to if Google pushes for its usage. To be fair, since the syntax itself is just a fancy id, there could be a JS polyfill that just extracts the snippet from window.location.hash...

        (and they may basically be forced to)

        They will be forced to if Google pushes for its usage.

        "here's a link to the relevant part of the article, but if you're not using Chrome you'll need to search for this phrase: ...".

        To be fair, since the syntax itself is just a fancy id, there could be a JS polyfill that just extracts the snippet from window.location.hash or whatever it is and just searches for that in the page. Hooray for more unneccesary JS!

        3 votes
  2. Deimos
    Link
    As mentioned in the article, it's currently uncertain whether other browsers will implement this: Here are the related discussions they link to: Message on webkit-dev mailing list Thread on...

    As mentioned in the article, it's currently uncertain whether other browsers will implement this:

    The Text Fragments feature is supported in version 80 and beyond of Chromium-based browsers. At the time of writing, Safari and Firefox have not publicly signaled an intent to implement the feature.

    Here are the related discussions they link to:

    3 votes