Best blogs send audience away Want to tick people off? Have your links open new windows. Have users click to a number of links on your blog so they now have 8 or 9 windows open. Make it difficult to browse because the back button can’t be used to browse because every link is a new window. You’ll have people unsubscribing from your blog in a New York minute. Thanks The Blogging Times
An avid fan of business, education, technology and finance. I lead a lean, highly focussed and capable team of Java Back End developers and Front End developers through a maze of complex software wizardry to fulfill the web maintenance needs of a large chemical manufacturer. As per Myers-Briggs Personality Types, I am an ESTJ. I pride in a project completed on time and according to plan. My hobbies include all kinds of technology, anything that I can taste and anything that goes fast or flies in the air. I like to read business books and comics in my spare time.
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As far as I’m concerned, the best reason not to use target=”_blank” is that it doesn’t valid to XHTML. 😛
If you’ve beeing using target=”_blank” for a while, it’s easy enough to fix. First, backup your database (or at least wp_posts). Then execute this SQL command:
update wp_posts set post_content=replace(post_content, ‘ target=”_blank”‘, ”) where 1
And all your links will be local again
Interesting. I’m an amateur blogger and a very amateur web-designer. Still, it drives me nuts when links _don’t_ open in a new window. There are two reasons. First, when I’m at my studio, my internet connection is very poor. I absolutely hate it when I forget to open links in a new tab because clicking the back button makes the page reload and out ther, this can take a long time out there (sometimes many many hours if the connection really dies). Secondly, links in an article feel like footnotes to me. I want to quickly view, and get back to the main article. On a reload, the browser repositioning itself breaks the continuity for me. Plus, if something seems interesting to pursue more deeply, the window is open and I can go with it. At the same time, I still can return to the referring article to read other topics. Anyway, I prefer new windows. Sounds like I’m in a minority – c’est la vie.
It’s a pretty standard convention everywhere on the internet that links which leave the domain open in a new window.
Personally, I’m like odin, but I suppose if new windows bother people, I’ll take it into consideration.
There must be a reason why target attribute is deprecated in XHTML strict. Tab browsing is becoming more popular nowadays and it should be up to users to decide how should each link be handled. Forcing link to open in new windows makes it impossible for users to click without popup i.e. bad design, while those who really enjoy links opening in new window should get used to opening links in tabs.
In the end, it should be a preference of users, not web developers.
I dream of a day when you can click a link and get it open in a new tab instead of a new window, but I’m a firefox tragic in love with the tabbing thing !
Personally I prefer to have a new browser window so I can go back to the exact spot where I left off without the need to reload the page and scroll down to the point I left off. Nick and Odin, you are not alone :o)