February 24, 2005
Pet Peeve
This is directed towards other website maintainers, bloggers, etc. Please, please, please do not make your links open in new windows by default. It's really quite annoying. If I wanted to stay on your site after clicking the link, I'd open it in a new tab myself. Forcing links to open in new windows means I have to either always open links in a new tab (better than new window) or deal with new windows at unpredictable times. You're imposing your choice of browsing style on me. If I want to open the link in a new window, I can do that. I can't *not* open it in a new window when you've dictated that it be so. Just stop it now. Ban the _blank.
I see your point but I still disagree. In general I prefer links to open into a new window b/c I don't browse in a very linear manner and I like to easily return where I started. In my old IE days I hated the extra step of right clicking to open in a new window. But I guess with Firefox it's so much easier that it doesn't matter as much anymore. Hell you're probably right.
Are we Red Staters and Blue Staters destined to agree on nothing? (Although I am writing from a Blue ... uh? District.)
The mouse gestures extension for Firefox make it incredibly simple to open a link a new window. No need to even touch the keyboard, just click on the link with a little motion of the wrist and there it is. As for being able to agree on things, I'm sure there's something. Or maybe everything really is political. :)