On Apr 27, 2007, at 9:55 PM, Lachlan Hunt wrote:
The major reasons for popups that I can remember include:
* Links to external sites, so that users don't leave the previous
site.
- It's far better to inform the user that they're going to an
external
site and let them decide for themselves if they want a new window.
What about webmail? My desktop application Mail client opens in a new
browser window when I click a link in a mail message. It seems
reasonable for a web-based mail client to do the same. I guess it
would be nice to have a preference or a way to override this, but it
doesn't seem fundamentally unreasonable.
I do agree that many uses of pop-up windows are broken. But target is
actually less problematic than window.open, since it avoids some of
the most abusive scenarios. For example, some pages put an onclick
handler on every link on the page. Then they use window.open to open
an ad popup in addition to the normal navigation. target can't be
abused that way. Similarly for removing the window chrome.
So in general, at the margin, it's probably unwise to create a
scenario where conformance checkers encourage authors to use
window.open instead of target.
Regards,
Maciej
