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Re: Reason For Links Opening In New Window

for

From: Kallie Swanepoel
Date: Jan 5, 2007 5:40AM

Hi Ben

My apologies for not starting the conversation in the correct manor, I
was not sure how to do that.

Thank you for the advise on the linking, I've never really used that
attribute, but I've seen it a few times, and didn't think that it's
relevant for the reasons you've mentioned.

Regards
Kallie Swanepoel
Piano Tuner/Klavierstemmer
Skype Name: KallieSwanepoel
Phone: +27 (0) 12 379 3762
Mobile: +27 (0) 83 261 6942
Voice Link: +27 (0) 88 129 8775
Fax: +27 (0) 86 633 2999
http://www.kallieswanepoel.co.za


-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of ben morrison
Sent: 05 January 2007 14:12
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Reason For Links Opening In New Window


On 1/5/07, Kallie Swanepoel < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Hi All
>
> Are there any special reason why one should want to have a link
> opening in a new window, using the
>
> Target="blank"
>
> attribute?
>
> That is:
>
> Opening the new page, and minimizing the previous one.

Hi Kallie,

Its good practice/polite to start a new conversation/email, anyway in
answer to your question there isn't a special reason to open a new
window and in fact is bad practice.

If a user wants to open the link in a new window they have the choice to
do so. It breaks the back button for users that aren't aware that a new
window has opened.

If you *must* use target="blank" then its best to advise the user.

<a href="newSite.html" target="_blank">go to this site (will open in a
new window)</a>

Generally i would avoid it unless the client specifically requests it,
then use a technique similar to the above.

regards, ben.