topic Re: External links in Community Site Feedback

External links

dvorak — Wed, 11 May 2016 10:13:16 GMT

I could well have missed a setting or discussion somewhere.... but is it possible to get external links to open a new tab as a default when clicking rather than opening in the current tab?

Re: External links

jaread83 — Wed, 11 May 2016 10:20:19 GMT

Let me just testing something....

using the link manager:

link to google

Just pasting a link:

https://www.google.co.uk/

So I remember that I included a little script in the header. What it will do is change the link target attribute (what defines how to open it in a new window, tab or in the current window) and will change it to open in a new window. The code is as follows:

$(".lia-message-body-content a").not('a[target*=_self]').attr('target','_blank');

Now the only downside to this is if you use the link manager and you leave the 'target' in its default state (open in current window) it will not override it and leave it as is. This is so users still have some control over their content though.

So basically... if you paste a URL directly into the editor it will open in a new window or tab as the target isn't set. The Link Manager popup requires a user to choose the target.

Re: External links

Anotherone — Wed, 11 May 2016 11:36:50 GMT

I thought we requested that the default setting in the drop-down in the Link Manager be changed to 'Open in new page'. I think that a good 90+% of the links that I need to post, need to open in a new page and I'm getting more and more irritated that it hasn't been changed.

Re: External links

jaread83 — Thu, 12 May 2016 10:59:42 GMT

@Anotherone, you are correct that it was requested but it was never implemented.

I will raise this with @LouisaMartin and add to my bug tracker.

Re: External links

Anotherone — Thu, 12 May 2016 11:02:57 GMT

It certainly need raising then Jack, but it's not been changed from where I'm looking The default target is still 'Open in current page'

Re: External links

jaread83 — Thu, 12 May 2016 11:06:59 GMT

i updated my reply, sorry my bad there.

It's on my bug tracker now.

Re: External links

LouisaMartin — Tue, 31 May 2016 08:49:08 GMT

Lithium will complete a backend configuration for this and then push to staging for us to test.

@jaread83 I'll let you know once this has been done.

Ta

Re: External links

jaread83 — Tue, 31 May 2016 08:52:23 GMT

Thanks @LouisaMartin, i will check it out on staging when it has been done. I beleive its an 'admin' setting so no push to production is needed? I mention this because I have been experimenting with the search drop down menu and wouldn't want that pushed up to the live site. If it's an admin setting then its all seperate to the Studio portion of the system (where any work I have done on staging lives). Wouldn't want anything pushed up from that yet!

Re: External links

Anotherone — Fri, 10 Jun 2016 19:30:53 GMT

As mentioned in message 7 Lithium now seem to have done whatever was needed, and this has been implemented on Staging and here on Live, the last part of which I assume was done by @jaread83?

Re: External links

jaread83 — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 08:39:15 GMT

The fix was applied to staging but I needed to ask them to put this one fix up on its own seperately from the other changes on staging as we have some things on there that aren't finished yet and wouldn't want those changes to go up while work is still going on with it.

Re: External links

bobpullen — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 08:51:48 GMT

@dvorak, if you're happy, fancy marking message 9 as the fix?

Re: External links

jaread83 — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 13:35:38 GMT

I should have mentioned this in my previous reply but this fix is now LIVE.

When highlighting text in the text editor and clicking the link button, the target select box will have open in new window as the default instead of open in current window. I have tested it in several browsers to make sure the behaviour is consistent and it works as expected. With this fix alongside my script to open all links in a new tab (if no target is given) the only way that a content link will open in the current window is if the user explicitly sets it in the link manager (and you can blame them for doing that ;)).

Re: External links

Anotherone — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 13:43:36 GMT

I had already mentioned it in my message 9

Re: External links

jaread83 — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 13:48:47 GMT

Message 9 didn't provide much context for anyone who wanted to read the OP and then see the solution straight after it. That is why I added some detail to the reply so anyone seeing this thread will get all the info they need without jumping around different posts to read whats going on.

Re: External links

dvorak — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 13:52:29 GMT

@Anotherone wrote:

I had already mentioned it in my message 9

you're just trying to get your solution count up

Re: External links

Anotherone — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 13:52:36 GMT

Well that's back to that debate then isn't it - anyone wanting to just "see the solution" isn't going to be interested in any detail, they just want to know it's fixed

Re: External links

Anotherone — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 13:55:08 GMT

@dvorak Well I wasn't - it was Bob who did actually read my post

Re: External links

Lurch — Sun, 26 Jun 2016 09:28:22 GMT

The usual accepted behaviour is to open links to the same domain in the same window and open external links in a new window.

All of this new tab business is browser dependent and is a user configuration not a link target option.

Re: External links

spraxyt — Sun, 26 Jun 2016 16:26:22 GMT

@Lurch wrote:

The usual accepted behaviour is to open links to the same domain in the same window and open external links in a new window.

That was the situation here until it was changed by request. I prefer the behaviour as it is now. In my opinion inexperienced forum users will find it easier if clicking any link *doesn't* take them away from where they are; experienced users can select the same tab option when posting if they wish to.

Re: External links

Anotherone — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 16:08:49 GMT

@Lurch whilst there are some conventions that perhaps ought to be adhered to, this is not one of them.
The majority of technical responses to posts here, that require a link to another source, are best opened in a new tab so that the reader does not lose the context of the response that they are reading whilst referring to the other source.
A good number of us that respond here were finding that this was really needed when writing our replies. I personally was finding that over 90% of the links I created really needed to be opened in a new tab.
About the only time I change the (now) default behaviour (it is user selectable when creating the link), is if I'm referring to another post earlier in a thread providing that it's not a very long thread and the post is many pages back.