Comments on: Open A New Browser Window

By: Kit Barker

Kit Barker — Thu, 07 May 2009 11:36:26 +0000

I don’t really like opening new browser windows at all to be honest.

It annoys me when a site I’m looking at opens new windows. I like to control whether a link is opened in a new tab, window or in the same window. All browsers let you do this, such as Command+Click in Safari.

Personally I’d rather try and teach people to learn to use there browser properly. The same applies with printing, back buttons and such like.

That said, you have to do what clients want and I get plenty of clients moaning if external links open in “their” window!

By: Rob Mason

Rob Mason — Tue, 05 May 2009 11:55:56 +0000

I am anal about using transitional – use strict! Good skills here, as it took me ages to find a suitable solution that a) worked well and b) I understood. I found one (can’t remember where) that didn’t add a target=” _blank” into the link, instead used a similar approach to pop-ups:

function externalLinks() { //we need getElementsByTagName for this to work if (!document.getElementsByTagName) return;


  //get all the anchors within the document

  var anchors = document.getElementsByTagName("a");

  for (var i=0; i
    var anchor = anchors[i];
    //check to make sure that we have a href, so its a real hyperlink

    //and make sure that we have a ref and its set to external

    if (anchor.getAttribute("href") && anchor.getAttribute("rel") == "external") {
      //assign the dynamic function to the onclick event.

      anchor.onclick = function(x) {

        //store the variable so that we can actually use it within each function

        var p = x;

        return function() {

          var w = window.open(p); //try and open up a new window with the url

          if(!w) { //check to see if the window opened

            //let the user know that a window didnt open

            alert("A popup blocker seems to have blocked the window from opening");

          }
          //return false to make sure the browser doesnt navigate away in the current window also

          return false;

        }

      }(anchor.getAttribute("href")); //pass through the href for this anchor

    }

  }

}

//make sure we only set everything up on load //after the DOM has been inited window.onload = externalLinks;

By: Helen

Helen — Sun, 03 May 2009 09:42:30 +0000

Excellent stuff my man!

I really don’t like using the transitional doctype (though I’m not anal about it like some people) But, having loads of links for my portfolio, I felt it necessary.

The only thing now, is that I have to work through converting the pages!