Linking to a Targeted Browser Window

R

randau

Linking to a Targeted Browser Window

I'd like to open reference links to other web sites in a
separate browser window from the browser window hosting my
own web site pages. The Link Target reserve word "_blank"
opens a blank new browser window for every link, which can
sometimes result in a lot of open browser windows.

Is there no way to "reuse" a previously linked browser
window and have it load the new web page in Foreground
instead of loading it in Background? When it loads in
Background, it appears to users like nothing happened when
they don't know they should look in the background browser
window.

My current understanding of the use of the TARGET attribute
within Link html tags is shown below.

Link:
---------------------------------------
<A HREF="http://www.site.com/page.html"
TARGET="window ID name or reserved Value">
Displayed Text</A>
---------------------------------------
Reserved Values for TARGET:
"_blank" Loads the link into a new blank window.
"_parent" Loads the link into the immediate parent of the
document the link is in.
"_self" Loads the link into the same window. (default)
"_top" Loads the link into the full body of the current
window.

--
randau
Oregon, USA

I read and post from the Google Groups web site using a Spam
collecting email address that I don't use for anything else.
So if someone wants to contact me, please cleanup and use
the Spam resistant Email address below.

randau2...(at)...proaxis.com
 
T

Thor Kottelin

randau said:
I'd like to open reference links to other web sites in a
separate browser window from the browser window hosting my
own web site pages. The Link Target reserve word "_blank"
opens a blank new browser window for every link, which can
sometimes result in a lot of open browser windows.

Is there no way to "reuse" a previously linked browser
window and have it load the new web page in Foreground
instead of loading it in Background?

I guess you could use JavaScript - window.focus, or whatever. For visitors
without JavaScript enabled, _blank might be a reasonable compromise.

Follow-ups narrowed.

Thor
 
A

Andy Dingley

Is there no way to "reuse" a previously linked browser
window and have it load the new web page in Foreground
instead of loading it in Background?

target="_foo"
target="_bar"
target="_bat"

A leading underscore in the target name triggers a new window (in most
browsers), but it'll be re-used if you select another link with the same
target.
 
M

Mark Parnell

Previously in
alt.html,comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html,microsoft.public.webdesign.html,
randau <[email protected]> said:

[f'ups set to alt.html]
I'd like to open reference links to other web sites in a
separate browser window

Then use the appropriate measures built into your browser to do so
(usually holding down a key on the keyboard, e.g. Shift, while clicking
the link, clicking on the link with the middle mouse button, right
clicking and selecting "Open Link in New Window", etc.).

IOW:

It's Not About What You Want, It's About What Your Visitor Wants[TM]
 
L

Lachlan Hunt

Andy said:
target="_foo"
target="_bar"
target="_bat"

A leading underscore in the target name triggers a new window

A leading underscore for any target name, other than the four predefined
values: _blank, _top, _parent and _self, is non-conformant [1].

Except for the reserved names listed below, frame target names
(%FrameTarget; in the DTD) must begin with an alphabetic character
(a-zA-Z). User agents should ignore all other target names.

Using any value will, in most browsers, open a new window with that name
assigned; unless a frame or window with that name already exists, in
which case, it will reuse the same window/frame.

However, please don't open new windows, it's really irritating for
user's and has accessibility issues [2].

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/types.html#type-frame-target
[2] http://diveintoaccessibility.org/day_16_not_opening_new_windows.html
 
D

David Ross

randau said:
Linking to a Targeted Browser Window

I'd like to open reference links to other web sites in a
separate browser window from the browser window hosting my
own web site pages. The Link Target reserve word "_blank"
opens a blank new browser window for every link, which can
sometimes result in a lot of open browser windows.

Is there no way to "reuse" a previously linked browser
window and have it load the new web page in Foreground
instead of loading it in Background? When it loads in
Background, it appears to users like nothing happened when
they don't know they should look in the background browser
window.

My current understanding of the use of the TARGET attribute
within Link html tags is shown below.

Link:
---------------------------------------
<A HREF="http://www.site.com/page.html"
TARGET="window ID name or reserved Value">
Displayed Text</A>
---------------------------------------
Reserved Values for TARGET:
"_blank" Loads the link into a new blank window.
"_parent" Loads the link into the immediate parent of the
document the link is in.
"_self" Loads the link into the same window. (default)
"_top" Loads the link into the full body of the current
window.

DON'T!! See "The Scourge of New Windows" at
<URL:http://karlcore.com/articles/article.php?id=25>.

In general, you should let the user decide whether to open a new
window -- or a new tab within the current window -- when selecting
the link. Don't take that option away from the user.

Note that I said "in general". On my own Web site, there is one
page (out of about 200) for which I launch a new window. It's a
glossary of terms. Links to it from my other pages are the terms.
In this one case, I launch a new window because I judged that the
user might want to keep switching back and forth between the
glossary page and a page with terms defined in the glossary.

On the other hand, trying to keep your own page on a user's desktop
while the user browses pages at other sites is at best annoying.
Some corporate, news, and other commercial sites do this in hope of
keeping their brand names in front of the user. Yes, it does keep
the brand name visible -- so that I can learn what brand is so
annoying I won't buy it.

--

David E. Ross
<URL:http://www.rossde.com/>

I use Mozilla as my Web browser because I want a browser that
complies with Web standards. See <URL:http://www.mozilla.org/>.
 
R

randau

Thanks for all your replies. I'm convinced of your feelings
about not opening new browser windows, especially after
reading a couple of your linked articles on the subject.

I've only recently started doing it. Now I'm convinced
about its not being a good idea. So I'm going to go back
and undo the TARGET attributed links used on a few of my
more recently posted web pages. I wish I'd of asked about
it earlier.

My Windows'ME, IE Browser 6 opens new browser windows as
partial windows (not full size). For myself, I kind of
liked it when some web sites opened links to other sites in
new browser windows. That's where I got the idea. But I
concede, if they're being opened as full screen size windows
completely hiding the parent window, that could be
disorienting to a lot of users.

Thanks again for your replies.
 
R

randau

Thanks for all your replies. I'm convinced of your feelings
about not opening new browser windows, especially after
reading a couple of your linked articles on the subject.

I've only recently started doing it. Now I'm convinced
about its not being a good idea. So I'm going to go back
and undo the TARGET attributed links used on a few of my
more recently posted web pages. I wish I'd of asked about
it earlier.

My Windows'ME, IE Browser 6 opens new browser windows as
partial windows (not full size). For myself, I kind of
liked it when some web sites opened links to other sites in
new browser windows. That's where I got the idea. But I
concede, if they're being opened as full screen size windows
completely hiding the parent window, that could be
disorienting to a lot of users.

Thanks again for your replies.
 
R

randau

Thanks for all your replies. I'm convinced of your feelings
about not opening new browser windows, especially after
reading a couple of your linked articles on the subject.

I've only recently started doing it. Now I'm convinced
about its not being a good idea. So I'm going to go back
and undo the TARGET attributed links used on a few of my
more recently posted web pages. I wish I'd of asked about
it earlier.

My Windows'ME, IE Browser 6 opens new browser windows as
partial windows (not full size). For myself, I kind of
liked it when some web sites opened links to other sites in
new browser windows. That's where I got the idea. But I
concede, if they're being opened as full screen size windows
completely hiding the parent window, that could be
disorienting to a lot of users.

Thanks again for your replies.
 
R

Richard Cornford

randau wrote:
... . For myself, I kind of liked it when some
web sites opened links to other sites in new
browser windows. That's where I got the idea. ...
<snip>

Under most circumstances, if you right-click a link you will often be
presented with a context menu offering you the option of opening the
link in a new browser instance/window (and/or a new tab on tabbed
browsers). You can do that whenever, and exactly when, you want. They
are very user friendly; web browsers, so long as they arn't messed about
too much.

Richard.
 
J

jake

In message said:
Thanks for all your replies. I'm convinced of your feelings
about not opening new browser windows, especially after
reading a couple of your linked articles on the subject.

I've only recently started doing it. Now I'm convinced
about its not being a good idea. So I'm going to go back
and undo the TARGET attributed links used on a few of my
more recently posted web pages.

Pity. Linking to an external Web site via another window is a good
thing.

If anything goes wrong with the other site it's much easier to kill the
window and be automatically returned to the original site, rather than
have to kill the browser and reload it.
I wish I'd of asked about
it earlier.

You might want to reconsider ;-)
My Windows'ME, IE Browser 6 opens new browser windows as
partial windows (not full size). For myself, I kind of
liked it when some web sites opened links to other sites in
new browser windows.

Becoming pretty much a standard approach these days.
That's where I got the idea. But I
concede, if they're being opened as full screen size windows
completely hiding the parent window, that could be
disorienting to a lot of users.

Only for people who've been using the www for less than 5 minutes.
Thanks again for your replies.
regards.
 
M

me

I've only recently started doing it. Now I'm convinced
Pity. Linking to an external Web site via another window is a good thing.

If anything goes wrong with the other site it's much easier to kill the
window and be automatically returned to the original site, rather than
have to kill the browser and reload it.


I have to agree with Jake.
These new windows are much easier to work with. And I think that people say
they don't like them, is because they remind them of pop-up ad screens which
is something completly different in my opinion.

Hans
Netherlands
 
R

randau

Jake said:
Only for people who've been using the www for less
than 5 minutes.windows

I agree with most of what you said except for the above.

However, I would like to have the option of reusing external
windows and have them display in the Foreground instead of
loading the new linked web page in Background. To an
unaware user, it looks like nothing happened.

The only other alternative seems to be "_blank" which opens
a new window for every link, which could result in opening
too many external windows.
 
R

randau

Richard said:
Under most circumstances, if you right-click a link you will
often be presented with a context menu offering you the
option of opening the link in a new browser instance/window
(and/or a new tab on tabbed browsers). You can do that
whenever, and exactly when, you want. They are very user
friendly; web browsers, so long as they arn't messed about
too much.

More often than not, you don't think about doing that till
after the fact even when you do know how it's done. You
don't always know whether or not the link is to another
web site. It may just be an internal link. Then there's
how many users that don't bother or even know how to open
links in new windows. These are some of the reasons I
thought it might be a good idea to do it.
 
S

Stan Blazejewski

Andy said:
target="_foo"
target="_bar"
target="_bat"

A leading underscore in the target name triggers a new window

A leading underscore for any target name, other than the four predefined
values: _blank, _top, _parent and _self, is non-conformant [1].

Except for the reserved names listed below, frame target names
(%FrameTarget; in the DTD) must begin with an alphabetic character
(a-zA-Z). User agents should ignore all other target names.

Using any value will, in most browsers, open a new window with that name
assigned; unless a frame or window with that name already exists, in
which case, it will reuse the same window/frame.

However, please don't open new windows, it's really irritating for
user's and has accessibility issues [2].

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/types.html#type-frame-target
[2] http://diveintoaccessibility.org/day_16_not_opening_new_windows.html

Seeing this subject has come up, I thought I'd throw in a related question.

I have a page set up with frames (a top bar, side bar & viewing window). It
all seems to work fins except for one annoyance .....
The 'viewing window' (or frame) is used to display full size pictures. If I
view the picture in a separate window, IE will resize any 'too big' pictures to
fit the window but if I view the picture in the 'viewing window' (or frame) it
is not resized and you have to pan around to see the whole thing.
My current work around is the resize all pictures to fit the 'viewing window'
(frame).

What am I doing wrong?

If you want to see what I mean, go yo www.cobracat.com, go to the Photo Gallery
& look at anything before 2003 and the MacQuarie Innovation pictures (these
haven't been resized)


--

Australia isn't "down under", it's "off to one side"!

(e-mail address removed)
www.cobracat.com (home of the Australian Cobra Catamaran)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cobra-cat/
 
K

kchayka

Stan said:
The 'viewing window' (or frame) is used to display full size pictures. If I
view the picture in a separate window, IE will resize any 'too big' pictures to
fit the window but if I view the picture in the 'viewing window' (or frame) it
is not resized

This is an option in IE, see Tools->Internet Options->Advanced, under
Multimedia

You cannot control this for your visitors, only for yourself.
 
D

Dan

jake said:
Only for people who've been using the www for less than 5 minutes.

I've been using the Web for over 10 years, and I strongly dislike sites
opening new windows on me.
 
M

Mark Parnell

Previously in
alt.html,comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html,microsoft.public.webdesign.html,
Stan Blazejewski <[email protected]> said:

[f'ups to alt.html]
I have a page set up with frames (a top bar, side bar & viewing window). It
all seems to work fins except for one annoyance .....

The frames?
The 'viewing window' (or frame) is used to display full size pictures. If I
view the picture in a separate window, IE will resize any 'too big' pictures to
fit the window but if I view the picture in the 'viewing window' (or frame) it
is not resized and you have to pan around to see the whole thing.

IIRC IE's Image Resizing Thingy[TM] only works if you access the image
directly, not if it is part of a web page.
What am I doing wrong?

Using frames.

http://www.htmlhelp.com/design/frames/whatswrong.html
http://html-faq.com/htmlframes/?framesareevil
http://dorward.me.uk/www/frames/
http://www.google.com/webmasters/2.html (see under "Your page uses
frames")
http://www.markparnell.com.au/articles/frames.php
 
J

jake

Dan said:
I've been using the Web for over 10 years, and I strongly dislike sites
opening new windows on me.
You may dislike them, but I doubt that you find them disorienting.

regards,
 
K

kchayka

jake said:
In message <[email protected]>,


Only for people who've been using the www for less than 5 minutes.

I guess you don't hang around "normal" computer users much.

I watch my sister work every time I want a reality check. She only uses
full-size windows on her puny 800x600 screen, and since she can't
multi-task, there should never be more than 1 app/window open at a time.
Anything out of the ordinary comes up and she gets real confused.
However, one thing she does know how to use is the "back" button. New
windows break this functionality, so it is indeed a source of confusion.
For her.

And her kind is probably a lot more common than you think.
 

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