When it’s okay to use ‘blink’

Tuesday, May 30th, 2006

The CBC’s Doctor Who page has a blinking cursor (of sorts) that preceeds the text “Transmission interrupted. Re-initializing…” In this example, for the first time ever, I think I’ve found a decent use of “blink”.

Blink state: on
Blink state: off

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5 Comments

WD Milner says:
May 31st, 2006 at 4:58 pm
The ‘blink’ value for text-decoration is not required by the CSS specification to be supported by a conforming user agent. Its use may also prevent compliance with WAI accessibility guidelines.

Nonetheless I have to agree that this is one of the very few times I have seen blink used appropriately.
Alan says:
June 1st, 2006 at 8:09 pm
haha… nice find!
Ara says:
June 1st, 2006 at 8:38 pm
WD: Didn’t know that. By “not required” do you mean “is optional” or “is not in the spec at all”?

Alan: What makes it better is that it’s the Doctor Who site! Albeit the Canadian one… now if they could only update it and post the date/time of the first episode of the (hopefully) upcoming season.
WD Milner says:
June 4th, 2006 at 8:28 pm
Ara: Soorry, I may have worded that confusingly. Blink is in the CSS specification as a valid option for text-decoration. It is not, however, required that a browser support ‘blink’ in order to be considered CSS compliant.
Ara says:
June 4th, 2006 at 8:53 pm
WD: Heh, sounds to me like the W3C was riding the fence. Keeping all camps happy :-)