Support `ping`, `hreflang`, `type` and `referrerPolicy` for SVG <a> element

[goldenboy777]

WebKittens

No response

Title of the proposal

Support ping, hreflang, type and referrerPolicy for SVG element

URL to the spec

https://svgwg.org/svg2-draft/linking.html#InterfaceSVGAElement

URL to the spec's repository

https://github.com/w3c/svgwg/blob/main/master/linking.html

Issue Tracker URL

https://issues.chromium.org/issues/40589293

Explainer URL

No response

TAG Design Review URL

No response

Mozilla standards-positions issue URL

No response

WebKit Bugzilla URL

No response

Radar URL

No response

Description

The hreflang, ping, referrerPolicy, and type attributes in SVGAElement mirror their HTML anchor counterparts, promoting consistent behavior across web technologies. They support language targeting, tracking control, privacy settings, and content type hints, making SVG links more consistent and developer friendly.

Firefox already supports hreflang, type and referrerPolicy attributes.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/SVGAElement#browser_compatibility
but they don't support the ping functionality completely (only partial support is there)
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=951104

[lukewarlow]

For the record, WebKit already supports the type and hreflang attributes as of STP 229 https://webkit.org/blog/17447/release-notes-for-safari-technology-preview-229/

From a quick look referrer policy seems a fairly easy addition, I can't speak to ping though.

[karlcow]

• ping is supported on the a element on Safari, but not on Firefox by default (need a flag).
• https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/HTMLAnchorElement/ping
• https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=951104
• Mozilla standard position. HTML <a> ping attribute mozilla/standards-positions#1212

I wonder what @shallawa @brentfulgham think about it.

[annevk]

The specification for these is woefully inadequate, no? I can't find any processing model for the ping content attribute, for instance. (And it's known to be somewhat broken in HTML too as it should really influence the navigation and not be its own standalone thing.)

[lukewarlow]

We could potentially move ping to it's own position if that one is more contentious though I admit even referrerpolicy isn't particularly well specced. The processing model for SVG <a> in general seems entirely absent? I'd have expected something like https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/links.html#following-hyperlinks-2, which makes use of all these attributes?

[annevk]

Yeah, ping was just an example. In practice user agents ignore hreflang and type so not having a processing model for those is probably okay, but overall I kinda wish we'd stop with adding features to SVG until it gets its house in order.