Posted by Jukka K. Korpela on 12/31/05 08:42

Jake <jake@gododdin.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>>On the one hand, people should have the choice as to whether or not to
>>open a new window, and this defeats that choice (usually invisibly). A
>>new window can disorient people, defeat the back button, and use
>>(perhaps scarce) system resources.
>
> Sure. It's a major problem for people with less than 15 minutes exposure
> to the Web.

Correct. And for the great majority of other people, too. You seem to imply
otherwise, though, thereby exposing your rather deep ignorance of the issue.

> If it really was an issue, then browser manufacturers would provide a
> setting to override the spawning of a new window -- forcing the target
> to be the existing window.

They do. Didn't you know this? Well, neither do many other people. And that's
really part of the problem.

>>On my site I have used it (I believe) judiciously, mainly opening new
>>windows into "foreign" sites and using the default (use the same
>>window) for most in-site links.
>
> Fine.

Not fine. It's a symptom of the disease of trying to "keep the user on my
site", thereby quite often _making_ the user leave the site, rather than
preventing that.

> Just warn your users that links to eternal sites open in a new browser
> window.

That would break the fundamental rule "never bother the user with
technicalities". Besides, all communication fails, except by accident,
so many people will waste their time reading the warnings, yet failing to
understand what they try to say. And when your page is printed, the warning
will look rather stupid, won't it?

> I notice that a number of authors are now starting to append an icon to
> a link that opens in a new window, with both 'alt' and 'title' text on
> the <img> informing the user of the fact.

That's a further distraction, requiring users to get familiar with such
idiosyncratic symbolism. (Authors naturally apply the NIH principle, using
each their own "icons" for the purpose.)

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
Pages about Web authoring: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www.html

[Back to original message]