Assistive skip links format error

[Ingmar Van Glabbeek]

On Confluence 6.15.4

Based on the 404 reports from our pages it looks like the assitive skip link to #title-heading is broken.

The folllowing set of links are defined for each page, and the first #title-heading is malformed due to the leading "\" on some pages. This is impacting SEO.

There seems to be no way to disable this feature or a manual override that fixes it.

<ul id="assistive-skip-links" class="assistive">
	<li><a href="\#title-heading">Skip to content</a></li>
	<li><a href="#breadcrumbs">Skip to breadcrumbs</a></li>
	<li><a href="#header-menu-bar">Skip to header menu</a></li>
	<li><a href="#navigation">Skip to action menu</a></li>
	<li><a href="#quick-search-query">Skip to quick search</a></li>
</ul>  

[Ingmar Van Glabbeek · Accepted solution]

Following change is a workaround for this issue:

org.apache.tomcat.util.buf.UDecoder.ALLOW_ENCODED_SLASH=true

This will allow the slash in that broken element to be correctly interpreted.

[Shannon S]

Hello Ingmar,

Thank you for contacting us about this.

I've found that there's an existing bug due to the skip links not working properly:

• CONFSERVER-54039 Section 508 - Broken skip links

This has been included in this other request to get Confluence up to 508 Compliance. The developers will document their progress on this thread:

• CONFSERVER-12383 Section 508 Compliance for Confluence (VPAT)

There is not currently a workaround, but please keep an eye on those threads as well as this Community post; if anyone has a solution that has worked for them, it will be added there.

Regards,

Shannon

[Ingmar Van Glabbeek]

@Shannon S  the issue you linked is related but not identical to what I am reporting here. The problem I see is that there is a malformed hidden link. Notice the \ prior to #

I was unable to find any bugreports on the matter.

<li><a href="\#title-heading">Skip to content</a></li>

[Shannon S]

Ingmar,

In general, the ticket was about broken skip links. Any issues regarding broken skip links are related to section 508 compliance, which will be addressed in that 2nd bug ticket (CONFSERVER-12383).

I hope that's clear, but let me know if you have any questions.

Regards,

Shannon

[Ingmar Van Glabbeek]

Following change is a workaround for this issue:

org.apache.tomcat.util.buf.UDecoder.ALLOW_ENCODED_SLASH=true

This will allow the slash in that broken element to be correctly interpreted.

@Shannon S  can this be included in the next release if no fix for the root cause is included?

[Shannon S]

Ingmar,

Thank you for sharing that workaround. I've included it in the bug ticket I raised in an internal comment to Atlassian staff in order to suggest it as a workaround. 

I am not in the development team myself, so I can't say for sure if the team will include it in the next release, but I've forwarded that on so they can consider it when working on a fix for this bug.

Thank you again, and take care.

Regards,

Shannon