User choice: open a window or not

Ha, thanks for that reading davidlark. :)

Honestly, I think "_blank" is absolutely worthless. If I want to open a new window, I middle-click (which opens a new window/tab in every modern browser). Of course, I know many, many people do not know how to middle-click (or right-click for that matter). However, I don't find adding an option to profile page to be any more user-friendly than educating them about how to open links in new windows. If they can't figure out a middle click, they probably won't find the option in the profile page either.

So, I'm against adding this as an option in the module, as I think it's generally not going to be helpful. However, I'd like to enable you to implement this if needed on your particular site.

You can simply specify a JS variable that will toggle this behavior with something similar to the following code:

global $user;
if ($user->external_links_new_window) {
  drupal_add_js(array('extlink' => array('extTarget' => '_blank')));
}
else {
  drupal_add_js(array('extlink' => array('extTarget' => FALSE)));
}

You'd need to set "external_links_new_window" variable manually some how, but this could simply be done with a profile field checkbox. You can put this code in a custom module's hook_init().

Don't forget there are people that physically cannot perform a middle click (quadraplegics etc). Most of them will be using speech recognition software to access a site.

I tried a middle click on FF3 using the wheel button and both left/right mouse keys and it did nothing. Must be a setting somewhere I've missed?

I gather there won't be any change to the EL module or the 5.x version?

Skip

A correction to my code, you need to pass in the second parameter of "setting" to drupal_add_js().

global $user;
if ($user->external_links_new_window) {
  drupal_add_js(array('extlink' => array('extTarget' => '_blank')), 'setting');
}
else {
  drupal_add_js(array('extlink' => array('extTarget' => FALSE)), 'setting');
}

avskip, even speech recognition software supports different kinds of clicks. However, if that wasn't acceptable, you can turn on the option to make all external links open in a new window, or implement a custom solution by providing an option in the user profile (or elsewhere) using the above changes.

Marking won't fix.

Thanks for this code. I'm sorry to see it won't be part of the module but I can make use of the code on my own site when I get to D6. I came searching to see if there was already a feature request for this because this issue has come up from users requesting it and me saying that it's generally frowned on. I already use this to add the little icon but have links set to open in the same window. Having it be a user settable option would solve the problem neatly. :)

Michelle

Resurrecting this thread as I've rolled some code that might achieve the original poster's intent but in a way that's more compatible with the module's spirit.

Attached patch adds a user setting that adds an option "This site offers links to other websites, would you like those links with added features?"

It is enabled by default.

Setting back to won't fix since the maintainer said he wasn't interested in supporting this feature. But thanks for the patch @Ken Hawkins, I'm sure many of us will find it useful :)

I'd also like to add that people always have the option to open any link in a new window, but adding target="_blank" forces them to do so. An accessible alternative that will allow visitors the choice is to leave this option disabled.