Hi, > We've had a discussion at work about pdf documents and hijacking the user's > browser / making it more user-friendly. What is the general feeling towards > having pdf and other non-html documents open in a new window?
I view PDF, .MS Office documents etc as *non web content*. That is, they are not web pages and should not load in the browser as though they were web pages. However this view is mostly gut feel rather than based on any kind of statistics on what users think :) So anyway, in order of preference my approach to PDF is this: 1) Don't use PDF in the first place, if at all possible. 2) If you do use PDF, it's critical that the link is clearly marked as a PDF. 3) I choose between new window/same window based on context (particularly what I know about the target audience). But I do lean towards new windows. The reasons for choosing new window: 1) In IE, the PDF will hijack the browser and - very slowly - attempt to load the PDF content inside the frame. It won't launch a separate Acrobat window with the PDF, as it should. 2) You only get a cut-down set of interface options when trying to view the PDF within IE. 3) In my experience there's a reasonable risk that the IE/Acrobat/PDF mashup will break and crash the window. You lose the web page as well. 4) No matter what browser, as I said before PDFs are separate from the originating web content and should get a separate window. When launching any new window, I favour a simple target="_blank" or the ALA method if users would benefit from more detailed control of the popup (http://www.alistapart.com/articles/popuplinks/). Basically my view there is that scripting should enhance the experience but the page should remain functional without it. Preferably it should function in much the same way, which is usually not possible but in this case it's entirely within our grasp. cheers, h -- --- <http://www.200ok.com.au/> --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson ****************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help ******************************************************
