> --- Original Post --- > Now that websites are moving more towards application style, > they should > really behave like applications as we are accustomed to. And > a fact is that > applications require pop-up windows at certain stages. Mostly when > information is provided that falls outside of a linear > process. The typical > example: a user fills out a form and wants to read the Terms > and Conditions. > Or a user works in MS Word and wants to read the Help File. > > [...] > In Word, if I decide to access information that help me work with the > current document (e.g. help file, save dialog, document preferences) I > expect them to open in a pop-up window. Why should it be any > different on > the web? > > Making "target" an invalid attribute for links is plain > stupid. It forces > developers to revert to some javascript ways of opening a new > window which > potentially makes websites extremely user-unfriendly for people with > javascript disabled. > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Samuel Richardson > Sent: Tuesday, 15 August 2006 1:57 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: RE: [WSG] target=_blank > > If the website is not user friendly for those with JavaScript > disabled then > it is a poorly designed website. Allowing target="_blank" > does not fix this. > For instance, how would a cell phone browser handle > target="_blank"? You > can't rely on it. >
Well, let's take the scenario of a form that people have to fill out on a website. Before submitting the form, the users need to agree to certain Terms & Conditions. If we imagine the Terms & Conditions are way too long to display as part of the form, the obvious solution is to display them on a separate page that users can open if they wish. What other reasonable solution is there than using target=_blank for that link? Opening in the same page will loose all the information the user entered into the form, which is one of the most frustrating things in the world. You cannot expect users to know to Shift-click a link to open the T&C in a new window. If you rely on Javascript to open the page in a new browser window than those with Javascript disabled will again loose whatever they entered into the form. Of course the best solution would be to use Javascript to open the window in a user-friendly format (e.g. foreground, focus, smaller than the main window, blah, blah) and use the target=_blank as the alternative for browsers without Javascript. But can anybody give me a reasonable example of solving this problem without target=_blank? ****************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help ******************************************************
