Hi
This kind of thing should be left up to the end user. As an example have a look at the NASA sites at the moment -windows opening everywhere and even using javascript to replace a simple target=_blank (why??). Really annoying.
Modern browsers have an open in new window and the good ones have open in new tab on the context menu. We should be letting the users (us as well as others) decide where they want to open a new page as it's their browsing environment. Many UA's can force all links to open in the same page, rendering any targeting useless. Denoting external links with icons can be a good thing if you want to show a user where they will go (although the status bar does that as well).
If a user hits an external link on a page they can use the back button to head back, if you want to keep state then this can be done at the application level using sessions and whatnot.
Cheers James
Justin French wrote:
On Sunday, February 8, 2004, at 01:29 AM, Chris Stratford wrote:
How can you make a LINK open in a new window in XHTML?? there is no attribute "target"
See the rel='external' + Javascript option documented here by Michael Zeltner... definitely got my vote, or step down to transitional maybe?
Justin French
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