Open admin links without overlay using CTRL+Click

My bad.

/me thinks this issue might need an extra tag...

ctrl+ click sounds good to me, but besides that, I'd like a teeny tiny button/link/text/whatever that would allow me to turn off the overlay. 80% of the time overlay is great, because I just want to do 1 task and then go back to my site. But (for instance) when I'm installing and configuring modules, I'd like to work without the overlay. Save setting in a (yummie) cookie offcourse!

Thoughts?

Forgot a tag...

I was going to open a separate issue for this, but maybe it should be a part of this one? I was thinking that in order for the overlay to be useful to site builders there needs to be a setting to disable the overlay for all admin links. I think it's a huge mistake to default the admin menu links to popup in an overlay, as you then lose any concept of "context", the exact issue the overlay is trying to solve, so I feel that admin links should default to *not* popping up in the overlay...

Anyway, sorry if this brings this issue slightly off topic- just let me know and I'll open a separate issue.

This would be very bad, ctrl-click should open a new tab. With the overlay, not without the overlay - as this will confuse the user that a common click pattern creates a different UI. Instead we should choose an alternative key pattern.

This is related to #659480: Per-user setting for the Overlay.

For that issue I added per-user ability to disable overlay. A next step here could be allowing per-site and/or per-user ability to customize which kinds of links use the overlay.

I agree that ctrl-click is not ideal. In most browser that opens a new tab. I would immediately seek to turn this off, or would wonder how it would interact with my browser's natural functionality of opening in a new tab.

I think in general, if we are seeking ways to open a link without the overlay, we should ask 'why?'. Is it a specific context, a specific type of page?

This would be very bad, ctrl-click should open a new tab. With the overlay, not without the overlay - as this will confuse the user that a common click pattern creates a different UI. Instead we should choose an alternative key pattern.

oh yeah, cool idea! Why don't we display the entire web site in an overlay all of the time?

Sorry, but this is very embarrassing. I'm not sure where or when this insane idea was born, but it seems like people want to build a new web browser that's called Overlay™. If you want to do that, then I would highly recommend to invest time + energy into real web browsers instead.

A web page should not try to take navigational decisions away from the user. Any advice to do so is misleading. For the very same reason, the HTML target attribute on links has been deprecated.

JavaScript is slow, and a browser in a browser makes zero sense.

It seems we have completely lost the idea and knowledge of properly following web standards and separation of technologies.

#11
Nitpicking because this is the second time I see this:
Target attribute is only deprecated in xhtml1.0, which is in it's own way a flawed standard, since it has to be used as text/html, which makes it actually html4.01 with some extra (pointless imho) rules. Target is back in html5.

Besides that, you're saying that navigational decisions shouldn't be taken away from users. Isn't that exactly what this issue is about (open admin links without overlay)?!?! We already dismissed the ctrl+click, so I'm not sure what your point is, but if it's against the overlay in general, there already is #659488: Properly test the overlay to determine if it belongs in core or contrib.

Somewhere in the very beginning of the overlay, it was (apparently) decided that all edit and admin links should open in overlay. I also don't agree with that, but there isn't an issue for this yet after all this time, and this issue doesn't feel like the right place to discuss this.

See #8 patch in #650528: Overlay should not appear when an administrative page is being viewed in the parent window.

I disagree with the usability angle on this one. When I do any of the following: middle mouse click an admin link, right click -> open in new tab, cmd/ctrl + mouse click an admin link I would expect that admin page to show, in a new window. I would also, not expect the ?destination parameter to come with me.

My reasoning is the inconvenience of having to wait for the page that I'm currently on to load again, before then waiting for an overlay to show.

Failing this, I think that there should be some kind of UI-accessible method of opening an administration link, in a new window without the overlay.

My natural suggestion, would be to use HTML5 context menus to add 'open without overlay' and open in new tab without overlay' options. I would just ignore those admin users with inferior browsers. See example here: http://davidwalsh.name/html5-context-menu

If that's not allowed, then I guess a modifier key is the only way to go.