My SharePoint site needs to preserve the a:visited style defined in CSS for links. I added the following code, which appends "&Source=/" to each href. It seems that by changing the href via jQuery, the browser only "sees" the original href and therefore never triggers the a:visited style as there's no match...
$("table[class='ms-listviewtable'] td[class='ms-vb2'] a")
.removeAttr("onclick")
.attr('href', function () {
return $(this).attr('href') + '&Source=/';
});
It looks like IE does not support :visited styles on dynamically updated links. I've only tested IE8 but if it doesn't work in the latest version, I don't expect it to work in IE 6/7
IE only supports the most basic scenario where a visitor clicks on a link that navigates to a different page and then clicks the back button to return to the previous page. Only then does the link display its :visited styling.
It works perfectly in Firefox 3 though; links are styled properly even when their href attributes are updated through javascript.
I've created a test page that allows you to try various links and methods: http://jsbin.com/odoqo (editable via http://jsbin.com/odoqo/edit)
Note: I've only used the test page in Firefox 3 and IE 8, it will probably break in IE 6/7