Re: Finding The New Acceptable Ways

At 12:24 AM +0000 12/12/01, Nick Kew wrote:
>On Thu, 6 Dec 2001, Dave Carscadden wrote:
>>  On all the links pointing away from my site, I was putting a target="_new"
>>  tag into my code, forcing a new browser window to open, so that I wouldn't
>>  lose my customers.  After 2 hours searching, I cannot find the new
>  > acceptable way of doing this on your site.
>Well, firstly that is - as a general rule - very bad practice.  If a user
>wants to open a new window, let *them* do it.  And don't try to "keep"
>them at your site, unless you want to annoy people into never returning.

If you warn the user, it's not all that bad.  This is even codified
in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines somewhere, I think --
language to the effect "either give the user control of changes
in context" (which is code word for "new frames") "...or warn the
user before they happen."

So something saying "External links open in a new window" with
external links clearly indicated is not necessarily bad practice.
It depends on the exact application and what you're trying to do,
and what your needs of your audience will be.

--Kynn

-- 
Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com>                 http://kynn.com
Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain            http://idyllmtn.com
Web Accessibility Expert-for-hire          http://kynn.com/resume
January Web Accessibility eCourse           http://kynn.com/+d201

Received on Wednesday, 12 December 2001 02:33:54 UTC