Target="_blank" | Hacker News Reader

Target="_blank"

9 pointsleovander17 comments

I am new around here and I was wondering if anyone has ever suggested setting the links to target="_blank". I realize it is easy to open links in another tab, I just wanted to know why the news section would want to be navigated away from.

View on HN

Oddly enough, this has been suggested, and discussed, several times in the past. Here is a selection:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=516933

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1621892

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1866268

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2111082

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2353291

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2469065

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3560941

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3695029

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4880204

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5085659

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5284186

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5919030

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5966176

I actually made a Firefox add-on because I wanted to do that. It also does a few other things, but that was the main thing that I wanted.

http://robert.io/alter-hn/

I can't speak for HN's motivations, but my view as a web developer has always been that, in general, target="_blank" is bad. My reasoning is twofold: 1) It's unnecessary. Opening a link in a new tab is easy for the user to do with a keyboard modifier, if that's what they want. 2) Worse, when you use target="_blank" you force that behavior on every user. There's no keyboard modifier to negate that behavior and keep the link in the same window.

Opening a link in a new tab is easy for the user to do with a keyboard modifier

Yes, on a desktop or laptop computer. Not so easy on a phone/tablet.

I don't think it's bad in the least, not unless it's overused or used improperly. If a "login" link opens a new window, that's obviously poor use. If it's a link along the lines of "view this supporting article that's on another site, then come back here and join the discussion", clearly you want a new window opened - both the author and the reader want that done. Does the target site hijack the "back" button in the browser? Who cares - I've opened a new window/tab and, when I'm done, I'll close it and return to the article I was reading.

"Yes, on a desktop or laptop computer. Not so easy on a phone/tablet."

I've never used Android, but it's dead simple in iOS. Just tap and hold.

Same in Android.

Sort of the opposite in my opinion - you can tap + hold on iOS but closing a window and going back to the previous one is way more of a pain than cmd + w on my computer.

Also, it breaks the back button. However, there are use cases for it. It really depends on the application, the use case, and the target audience.

Middle clicking on a link brings it up in a separate tab.

If your mouse does not have a middle click button, buy one. It is a godsend.

If not, re-map one of your mouse buttons to be a Button-3. I often remap the forward button to Button 3. How often would you want to go forward to a page after you've gone back?

I don't know why the top two comments here assume that everyone browsing is using a mouse. Many of us use a phone/tablet.

I didn't even know mobile browsers supported tabs. I would have assumed a desktop or laptop too.

I've used the iPhone 3G+, HTC One, and Samsung Galaxy S4 and they all have tab-based browsing. The Chrome browser even prompts you to "Open in new tab?" if you long-click a link.

You don't need to remap or buy a new mouse, ctrl+click opens in a new tab as well.

Also, middle clicking a tab closes it, which is handy.

If you use Greasemonkey, you can use the following user script (only adds the target attribute to article links):

  // ==UserScript==  
  // @grant       none  
  // @match       https://news.ycombinator.com/*  
  // @name        Hacker News Tweeks  
  // @namespace   https://github.com/ridersargent  
  // @require http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js  
  // ==/UserScript==  
  $(document).ready(function() {  
    // set article-related links to open in new window/tab  
    $('.subtext a, .title:not(:last) a').attr('target', '_blank');  
  });

There are bookmarklets (or write your own) that will parse page source and modify links to this.

Why did the chicken navigate away from the news page?

To get to the comments.

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