Target _blank

Jack Franklin · #1 (**permalink**) Oct 3rd, 2007, 13:18

Is there a way to make all links on your site open in a new page without manually entering target="_blank" to them all?

Jack

welshstew · #2 (**permalink**) Oct 3rd, 2007, 13:22

ooohhh, why would you wnat to do this?
You should only be opening external links in a new window, internal links shold stay in the same one.

Jack Franklin · #3 (**permalink**) Oct 3rd, 2007, 13:24

It's for my ICT work. I have hundreds of links to pdf files with work in and they need to open in a new window if possible.

welshstew · #4 (**permalink**) Oct 3rd, 2007, 13:25

hhmmmm, place the following between your <head> tags and it should work:

Code: Select all

<base target="main">

Stew

Jack Franklin · #5 (**permalink**) Oct 3rd, 2007, 13:26

Yay it works! Thanks stew!

welshstew · #6 (**permalink**) Oct 3rd, 2007, 13:27

no probs

alexgeek · #7 (**permalink**) Oct 3rd, 2007, 15:25

does that make it apply to everything though?
is there a way to do this on just some links?

Marc · #8 (**permalink**) Oct 3rd, 2007, 15:26

Please remember for future purposes... the target="" attribute has been depreciated in strict doctypes.

alexgeek · #9 (**permalink**) Oct 3rd, 2007, 16:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marc

Please remember for future purposes... the target="" attribute has been depreciated in strict doctypes.

Even in the base tag?
Didn't know that
thanks marc

Marc · #10 (**permalink**) Oct 3rd, 2007, 16:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by alexgeek

Even in the base tag?
Didn't know that
thanks marc

I think so, it does have target="".

moojoo · #11 (**permalink**) Oct 5th, 2007, 14:43

The best approach would probably use a small snippet of javascript and set rel="external" to the links you want opened in a new window. Its pretty snazzy from a validity and accessibility standpoint.

Code: Select all

function externalLinks() {
 if (!document.getElementsByTagName) return;
 var anchors = document.getElementsByTagName("a");
 for (var i=0; i<anchors.length; i++) {
   var anchor = anchors[i];
   if (anchor.getAttribute("href") &&
       anchor.getAttribute("rel") == "external")
     anchor.target = "_blank";
 }
}
window.onload = externalLinks;

then on the links you would put:

Code: Select all

<a href="foo.html" title="Foo Fargh!" rel="external">Foo Foo</a>

Himore · #12 (**permalink**) Oct 12th, 2007, 09:34

I wanted to open all <a></a> tags within a specific <div> on one of my sites. It was a live Ebay listing and when people clicked 'buy it now' I wanted them to stay on my page but open the Ebay link in another window.

Anyway, I stumbled upon this nifty piece of code:

http://www.bennolan.com/behaviour/

MikeHopley · #13 (**permalink**) Oct 12th, 2007, 09:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by moojoo

The best approach would probably use a small snippet of javascript and set rel="external" to the links you want opened in a new window. Its pretty snazzy from a validity and accessibility standpoint.

No it's not.

You're using javascript to sneak around the validator. That's silly: you get the "valid HTML" badge, but your HTML is actually invalid, because it uses target="_blank" (after being rewritten by javascript). If you try validating your generated source code, then it will fail.

It also harms accessibility. Whatever fancy trick you use to implement target="_blank", it still takes control of the browser away from the user.

If you want to write invalid HTML, just do it -- don't use a fancy trick to pretend it's valid.

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