Posted by mrcakey on 09/05/07 09:32

"dorayme" <doraymeRidThis@optusnet.com.au> wrote in message
news:doraymeRidThis-2BF7ED.16595705092007@news-vip.optusnet.com.au...
> In article
> <1188973711.175101.108210@d55g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
> marckatsambis@gmail.com wrote:
>
>> > Look at the choices you have in your FF preferences for "opening
>> > new pages". I will leave you to others to be drawn and quartered
>> > for not knowing about the evils of _blank
>> >
>> > --
>> > dorayme
>>
>> Weird! My Firefox preferences seem to match those of my colleagues FF
>> preferences, but her browser displays the link within a new window as
>> it is meant to.
>>
>
> You do not say what her prefs are or yours?
>
>> What is the particular setting I should be looking for? And why is
>> _blank evil? What should I use instead?
>
> I have:
>
> <http://netweaver.com.au/test/pics/ff_prefs.png>
>
> I may have also downloaded an optional panel called Tab Mix Plus
> Options. Google up for it. you might like it.
>
> About _blank. If you are an author, try to avoid it because it is
> too presumptive to think you know better than the person who is
> looking at your webpage. If he wants to see a link in a new page,
> he has the powers right there in his browser. On a Mac, eg, you
> can simply control or right click and a little context menu comes
> up and you can choose how to open a link, in a separate window,
> in a tab, in the same window, on the toilet roll, wherever.
>
> On principle, the user knows best. Best not to assume he is a
> complete schmuck, he will resent you for it if he is not. He
> might very well be irritated to see windows opening unexpectedly.
>
> In fact, there was a court case recently where a woman died of a
> heart attack from the surprise, another (a man this time) died
> from going into cataclysmic spasms from the confusion. The
> defence tried to call an "expert witness", but it did no good
> when the court heard that he had recently been seen skiing in
> purple pants trying to outrun the police. The deceased's family
> cleaned up.
>

My family, who are pretty bright, and nearly all my friends who are mostly
educated to Masters and PhD level, need to be told everytime I visit how to
use right click. Maybe you have a site oriented towards techies, but I
think you're being very generous to your users. IMHO, I don't think there's
anything inherently evil in forcing certain incidental pages, e.g. T&C's, in
another window/tab.

+mrcakey

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