Feature Request: Hyperlink Support

[AliceWonderMiscreations]

This is a feature I would like to see, suggested I should put it her on the user list.

I will not argue pros and cons, just why I personally want it.

I use WebVTT to create captions tracks for audios and use my own HTML5 audio player to render them.

Often at the end of the audio, but sometimes in the middle, the speaker will mention a website where the listener can get more information. When I make the captions I turn those into hyperlinks so that a user can just click them and it will open in a new window or tab.

I think this is useful, but it results in my WebVTT files not validating and I like things to validate. I suspect as more people start using WebVTT for audio content others will also want the ability to do this.

I would create the spec in such a way that user agents are free to ignore the hyperlink and just present the text as if it wasn't a hyperlink, if that was their choice to do. Also it might not be a bad idea for the syntax to allow aria-label attribute to be constructed as part of the created hyperlink but I haven't seen a need for that yet myself.

Thank you for your time.

[ewmayes]

I would also very much like this feature. Would like to have scrolling subtitles with foreign music lyrics and the ability to click on a word and have the definition appear in a new window/tab/frame

[silviapfeiffer]

Please create just one feature per issue.

@ewmayes WebVTT has been specified to allow scrolling subtitles through the "subtitle regions", see the example in the spec at https://w3c.github.io/webvtt/#example-cd0199a2 . You can associate different tracks with a video element in different languages through the track's lang attribute.

About links on text in subtitles - this was discussed early on in the definition of WebVTT, but rejected because TV subtitles don't have it. I personally think it's a good idea though, so we should discuss this for the next version of WebVTT.

[dwsinger]

Yes, I agree

[urna]

agree +1

Web is much more powerful than TV, and what could web be without links? It's the link make all the web connected.

I need this feature too: click one word, then goes to dictionary to see the definition.

[arky]

I think there is a use case for this. Here is example shared by @psubhashish that shows how additional functionality could be built with this feature

https://pmportal.org/videos/rotten-reparata

Language specialist and learners could click on the highlighted word in the subtitle and it will link them to more information about the word and its meaning, origin.

[urna]

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