Hi.

Please don't do
The reason? In most browsers, it's trivially easy to open things in _blank overriding its absence: ctrl-click for konqueror, firefox, galeon, capital T for links--all motions requiring very little extra finger movement.

It's much slower to open things in _self(?) overriding the presence of _blank: my best solution is to copy the link address, then paste it. I obviously don't know everything, but I think it's a fair stipulation that in most cases it's easier to open a new window than to not open a new window.

I like "target=_blank" where they happen to have it. The ctrl-click gizmo doesn't work on the browser that I use.

Generally speaking, I like "target=_blank" myself.

I'm with jonaskoelker on this one. All links should open in the same page unless the user explicitly specifies otherwise, for example in my case clicking the middle button to open in a new tab.

I just set the "force links that open in a new window" thingy to open in the same window in Firefox, far easier to do that than go complaining to the webmaster of every single site I visit.

I set mine to open in a new tab. If we were to force things to open in the same window, we would then get an upsurge of posts saying "I was halfway through a very long post, clicked a link to check something and when I hit 'back' I lost my post".

Can't please everyone

I meant that I agree'd with jonaskoelker that links should only open in a new window/tab when they are explictly told to, not to change the way LQ works, just to be 100% clear. Making one site work how I want in the millions I have visited/vist/will visit ain't gonna make much difference.

I remember back when I was just getting into computers, my first machine had Windows ME and IE, if you visited a badly designed site in a few clicks you could end with loads of instances of IE on the taskbar due to adverts and the fact that every link opened in a new window, and then you get an icon and three dots for each instance of IE in the taskbar cos you have too many windows!? What good is that?

When clicking a link theres a decision to make, am I just making a detour, or have I finished with this page and moving on with my life. I *think* I'm perfectly capable of making that decision myself, I don't need some webmaster second guessing me. It seems to me commercial sites use the _blank target just so that their product remains on your screen underneath the new window so when you close it its there reminding you it exists and you can still buy it

hmm, maybe I've put too much thought into and should just get a life? But theres just a few things in life that really drive me nuts, I think the link thingy could be one of them.

Interesting--which browser might that be?

To which there's a perfectly reasonable answer, and that's "learn how your browser works".

No, but you can please all the open-in-the-same-window people by implementing my solution, and at the same time work perfectly fine--only differently--for a substanial portion of the open-in-_blank people. I mean, it's not even an extra keystroke, because the motions parallelize well.

On the other hand, by opening in _blank, you're displeasing all the open-in-the-same-window people, so if you want to please as many people as possible, go with my solution.

Also, in general, if you cater to the needs of the newbies over the needs of the wizards, you'll eventually get fewer wizards. That'll also mean that the newbies will get fewer answers, and be less happy with LQ. Sure, it takes a lot more than _blank to whack the ecosystem that far out, but think about it.

Also, and this is the crux of my argument: sometimes I do want to open threads in a new window, sometimes not. My problem is that LQ has decideded, quite wrongly, that I always want to open threads in a new window. Please, give us choice, so that we can decide on our own what the right thing is.

This is still a *nix forum, right? The unix philosophy has always been to trust the user, and to trust him to know best what it is he wants. Should a unix forum not follow the unix philosophy?

Obviously, it's not the browser that you use. Further, I suspect that I am not alone regarding this.

This attitude here suggests total disregard for what many other people would have to put up with just so that you could be pleased. In particular, consider the following: someone in a very long post is most likely going to be concentrating on the post topic and not on the extra buttons that they would have to hold down to "make their browser do the right thing."

And how do you know that all of the open-in-the-same-window people happen to be most of the people on LQ?

If I remember correctly, LQ's philosophy is meant to cater to the needs of newbies, and newbies being newbies, they are going to need a lot more catering than wizards, which means that LQ is going to cater to the needs of the newbies over the needs of the wizards.

Thankfully, I suspect not. Because, there are plenty of wizards out there that understand the need to go the "extra mile" to make it as painless as possible for a newbie to get on board with linux.

There might be a solution to this that would not cause your will to be forced over on everyone else. How about a flag that a user can set in their LQ control panel that would turn off "target=_blank" for them? Then, you can have your choice, while, at the same time, not forcing your choice over on others. But, why didn't you propose that at the outset?

And, what happens when other users don't want what you want?

I second the proposal to allow everyone to choose the behaviour of links in their profile. Personally I prefer links to external sites to open in a new tab but it hardly seems fair to force my preferences on everyone else.

Almost every time I come accross a link that opens in a new window, it is unnecessary, and I end up just closing out the window entirely and then middle clicking it into another tab.

The only time new windows should ever be used is when the user absolutely expects it to be used. Help windows, or any other window that will open in a small window should open in a new window, but windows that are just standard maximized windows that are completely irreleavant to the page you are viewing should open in the same window.

I hate the way most developers do this. I usually end up middle clicking everything because it's more efficient to middle click and close a tab out than it is to regular click and close an entire window.

As it stands now, only offsite links open in a new browser and that behavior is only in the forums. At this time we don't plan to change that behavior. You can still right click the link and select open in new tab if you so desire, but for the majority of uses and members, offsite links opening in a new window is going to be the desired behavior.

--jeremy

For anyone who's interested: if you're using Firefox, you can use Tab Mix Plus (or probably other extensions) to force all new windows into new tabs instead.

huh? i missed something i think

I asked to learn, to broaden my perspective and to see things from your side (I might know the browser you're using). Either you're deliberately obstructing me from seeing things from your perspective (which I'm not believing), or you misunderstood my intentions (which I do believe)--what did you think my question was all about? More interestingly, which browser are you using?

That aside, I just realised that I must have been smoking pot the whole time:
Huh. Why didn't I distinguish between windows and tabs in my original post? Anyways, let me #define pane (window or tab). What I'm interested in is to have a convenient choice to have pages open in new panes or not.

I'm not entirely clear that it's unambiguous from what I've said that that's what I want, so sorry for not expressing myself clearly.

However, I believe that there's no way HTML will let you distinguish between tabs and windows--but I could be wrong (so please correct me if I am), so I figure everything said about windows more or less transfers to panes transparently. Also, since my preferred browsers handles the distinction between windows and tabs for me, I'm quite indifferent to which one it is, just in case it is possible to distinguish (and I would recommend tabs, since most users of tabbed browsers supports that (and yes, I did pull that most out of my ass)).

Interesting. I interpret that as
If my understanding is correct, then great--that works for me. However, under `similar threads' I found
Which means that (since showthread.php is not offsite), either Jeremy is incorrect, or I'm misunderstanding something. Which one is it, and what--if anything--am I misunderstanding?

That's a really brilliant solution, and the reason I didn't propose that at the outset was that I didn't think of it. Thanks for suggesting it.

Jeremy might not want to implement it, though, because that's the first step on the path that leads to the dark side^W^W^Wcode bloat.

However, I've yet to see an example of a browser not giving its users a convenient choice (with my understanding of Jeremy's algorithm being implemented, for off-site links). I believe xode has such an example handy?

Okay, I said some things that were a bit out of line. You replied with a few things I think are a bit out of line. How about we leave that as the past and focus on making people happy with the link targets on LQ?

The logic I described is only for the user generated part of the site (ie. posts).

--jeremy