Question

Which is the better way of using the image as a link..

<A HREF="javascript:password()">
<IMG SRC="pict1.gif" NAME="pic1" ALT="about us!" BORDER="0" align="left"></A>

or the same thing using onClick in the img tag ??
Which one is advisable?? Are both equally good to use??

Answer 1

There are three common techniques:

1. a with href="javascript:whatever()"
2. a with href="#" onclick="whatever(); return false;"
3. img with onclick="whatever()"

(1) and (2) will create a dotted focus border around the image when its clicked, sometimes this is undesirable.

(1) and (2) adds a border around the image same color as the links in your document so you may want to set border=0.

(1) and (2) will display the hand pointer upon mouse over.

(3) does not behave anything like a link… no focus border, no link color borderm no hand pointer, nothing displayed in the status bar upon mouseover.

Personally, I’d go for option 3: use an a tag for links that take you somewhere, do not use them as action buttons.