1753933 - Implement Text Fragments (formerly Scroll to Text Fragment)

Status: NEW

(Core :: DOM: Navigation, enhancement)

Description

[Anne (:annevk)]

Specification: https://wicg.github.io/scroll-to-text-fragment/

standards-positions: https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/194

(As part of implementing this we should figure out how to move this specification to a proper standards venue and ideally have that sorted before shipping.)

Comment 1

[Kai [:schweinepriester]]

Shipped in Chrome & Safari now:

• https://caniuse.com/url-scroll-to-text-fragment
• https://webkit.org/blog/13399/webkit-features-in-safari-16-1/

Comment 3

[Alexandre Poirot [:ochameau]]

Note that Google Search seems to be using this feature to scroll to precise content from search results:
https://til.simonwillison.net/html/scroll-to-text

Comment 4

[James Teh [:Jamie]]

For accessibility, at a minimum, we need to notify accessibility APIs of the node to which the page has scrolled. See nsAccessibilityService::NotifyOfAnchorJumpTo.

Even with this, significant parts of this feature will be inaccessible:

1. There is no way for an assistive technology user to perceive the exact text which is visually highlighted. They only know about the node in which the text begins.
2. There is no way for an assistive technology user to perceive any text directives other than the first.

We should ideally figure out and implement these before we ship this.

See also https://github.com/WICG/scroll-to-text-fragment/issues/142#issuecomment-1709325246

Comment 5

[Frank]

Any news on the arrival time of this feature?

Comment 6

[Jan Jaeschke [:jjaschke]]

Hi Frank,

thank you for your interest in this feature. While I can not give you an exact arrival time (and I can only speak for the DOM part of this, ie. opening a link that contains a text fragment, not creating a link to a text fragment), I can tell you that we are actively working on this and you can expect this feature to be turned on in Nightly in the next couple weeks / months.

Comment 7

[Frank]

Good evening Jan,

Thanks for the detailed answer!

Comment 8

[Jon S]

Also requested on Connect here: https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/support-text-fragments/idi-p/21797