is there a way to get links to open in the same browser tab?

[jacobolus]

The way the web was designed / the way browsers work by default, when you click a link, you navigate to that page in the same window/tab. Almost all sites on the web do this. As a user, when I want a tab open in a new window, I can command-click, middle-click, etc. to get that behavior. When I just click a link though, I expect it to work the standard way.

On Geekhack, when I click a link in a comment, it pops open a new tab, and it’s ****ing annoying. I know gmail, maybe facebook, and various other sites run by fascist *******s also do this, and it’s also super ****ing annoying when they do it too.

Especially annoying: the links that make up the Geekhack UI work properly, by opening the requested content in the same tab/window. It’s only links within threads that are broken.

I don’t want to have to think carefully about what site I’m on before I click a link, or what part of a page the link is located in. I don’t want clicking a link to be an unpredictable experience. Links are the most basic thing about how the web works, and I don’t want to be constantly cursing when they don’t work consistently.

The #1 rule for how to be a good website is: Don’t break my browser’s default behavior. Don’t break my links. Don’t break my scroll bar. Don’t break my back button. Don’t clobber standard keyboard shortcuts. Etc. etc. etc. I know it’s fashionable to do otherwise, but website operators, please restrain yourselves.

So anyway, is there any way I can turn that behavior off? Ideally it should be turned off for everyone, because that’s how webpages are supposed to work by default. But I’ll be satisfied if I can even turn it off for just myself.

Thanks!

* * *

Edit to add (copied from my comment downthread):

Note: I’m not actually personally mad at anyone here, or any geekhacker at all. This is a decision made by the developers of the forum software, and apparently can’t be trivially fixed. I might go poke around in the forum software to see what’s causing it, but no promises... I have keyboard **** to work on.

Re-reading, I think my posts can probably be read with a more aggressive/harsher/more personal tone of voice than intended. I’m just slightly frustrated (at this and several other things) at the end of a long day, and that can get me a bit snarky/ranty.

I do appreciate the suggestions. Hugs all around.

On that note, I’m going to go have a beer.

[trizkut]

You can install a userscript extension, and have it execute something like this:

Code: [Select]

var links = document.getElementsByTagName('a');

for (var i=links.length-1; i>=0; i--) {
  links[i].target = "_top";
}

[jacobolus]

I don’t see anything called a “userscript extension” anywhere on this forum.

If your answer is that my browser is fundamentally broken so the only solution is installing a browser extension, then, respectfully, that’s a pile of horse****.

(That is, thanks for the suggestion, but I don’t think that’s really an acceptable solution for geekhack to provide; instead the site should default to working the way every other site on the web works, and if someone wants geekhack to be a special snowflake that person can add the browser extension.)

[trizkut]

Well, if you're going to ***** at someone who's providing a valid solution that has virtually no overhead, I see no reason to provide further help.

It's like saying "You're telling me I need to buy a special plate to remove switch tops?  That's bull****."  Modern browsers allow the use of extensions for a reason -- for the user to customize their experience beyond what is provided by the browser. 

You and I have vastly different opinions of "fundamentally broken."  In my opinion, it's a perfectly reasonable feature for websites to open external links in a new tab, especially on forums.  When you're done looking at whatever link you clicked, you close the tab or ctrl-w and you're at the place you were previously reading. 

[jacobolus]

Well, if you're going to ***** at someone who's providing a valid solution that has virtually no overhead, I see no reason to provide further help.

To be clear, I’m not *****ing at you. I’m glad you pitched in an answer (though putting that answer into practice is non-trivial in Safari; I have no desire to spend 30 minutes figuring out how to un-break things every time a website creator has a dumb idea).

I’m saying that *if* that’s the only answer, then I still have a complaint with whoever controls geekhack.

Modern browsers allow the use of extensions for a reason -- for the user to customize their experience beyond what is provided by the browser.

Browsers also provide defaults for a reason: so people won’t have to wonder on each website what’s going to happen every time they click something.

In my opinion, it's a perfectly reasonable feature for websites to open external links in a new tab, especially on forums.  When you're done looking at whatever link you clicked, you close the tab or ctrl-w and you're at the place you were previously reading.

Incorrect. Opening a new tab sometimes causes a 10 second delay. Even when it doesn’t, I now have two tabs to do something with, when I only wanted one.

Websites shouldn’t try to guess whether users want them to have unique break-the-defaults behavior. Websites should do what users expect. It’s presumptuous, patronizing, and user hostile.

I already have 3 perfectly good ways of opening content in a new tab if I want it in a new tab (built right into the browser). Some website creator shouldn’t be making that decision for me.

[Zeal]

I actually prefer it when links are opened in new tab. Like trizkut mentioned, once I finish looking / reading at the link I just clicked, I can just Ctrl + W to resume reading the original thread. Not sure about you guys, but I don't like to press the middle mouse button to open a new window -- just doesn't feel as natural, and some mice have really stiff middle clicks.

[jacobolus]

I actually prefer it when links are opened in new tab. Like trizkut mentioned, once I finish looking / reading at the link I just clicked, I can just Ctrl + W to resume reading the original thread. Not sure about you guys, but I don't like to press the middle mouse button to open a new window -- just doesn't feel as natural, and some mice have really stiff middle clicks.

In that case, you should change your browser default to open things in new tabs. You shouldn’t get sites on a case-by-case basis to sometimes do one thing and sometimes do a totally different thing, without asking.

Websites try to do all kinds of wacky things because someone might like it. For instance, some websites break the back button. Some websites break scrollbars. Some websites hover little **** every time you select some text. Some websites add extra text when you try to copy/paste. In every case, I’m sure *someone* likes the non-default behavior. But if you operate a website, please don’t do these things. I shouldn’t have to think about what’s going to happen when I try to copy/paste, when I try to use the back button, or when I click a link. It should just work. It’s not hard.

If you want to add extra fancy features to your website/app/whatever, add them as extras, beyond the standard user interactions, don’t break the existing expected behavior.

Alternately, if sites want to add extra opt-in changes to default behavior, that’s fine, go right ahead. But make sure that you don’t break it for those who don’t want the change.

[Zeal]

I actually prefer it when links are opened in new tab. Like trizkut mentioned, once I finish looking / reading at the link I just clicked, I can just Ctrl + W to resume reading the original thread. Not sure about you guys, but I don't like to press the middle mouse button to open a new window -- just doesn't feel as natural, and some mice have really stiff middle clicks.

In that case, you should change your browser default to open things in new tabs. You shouldn’t get sites on a case-by-case basis to sometimes do one thing and sometimes do a totally different thing, without asking.

Websites try to do all kinds of wacky things because someone might like it. For instance, some websites break the back button. Some websites break scrollbars. Some websites hover little **** every time you select some text. Some websites add extra text when you try to copy/paste. In every case, I’m sure *someone* likes the non-default behavior. But if you operate a website, please don’t do these things. I shouldn’t have to think about what’s going to happen when I try to copy/paste, when I try to use the back button, or when I click a link. It should just work. It’s not hard.

If you want to add extra fancy features, add them as extras, beyond the standard user interactions, don’t break the existing behavior.

Actually, that's how my browsers are set up by default. Is there an option for it to not open a link in a new tab? I could only find the option where it opened a completely new window.
I've also never had a link 10 seconds to load, unless it's a foreign one. Might be time for a hardware upgrade if regular links are taking upwards to 10 secs to load.

[Melvang]

How about this.  If you don't like how your browser acts, get a different browser. 

If you are listening to the radio and you don't like whats playing do you start a post on the stations facebook page *****ing they aren't playing what you wanted to listen to?  No, you change the station.  Same thing here.  Don't like how one browser acts change it.  Whether those changes are internal scripts, extensions, or a new browser its your choice.

Coming here with this much attitude and language is not going to get you where you want to go in the method you want to arrive.  I would suggest you do some googling to figure this out for yourself or learn to ask in a respectful manor.

Either way your complaint would probably be the creator of your browser, not geekhack.

That being said opening a tab taking 10 seconds is not a geekhack issue.  That is an issue with the software and hardware on your end.

I use chrome myself and I expect any and all links in the forums to open to another tab.  My browser opens automatically to 3 tabs of my choosing, and extra tabs are of no issue.  The one exception is on my phone where I try and keep it to 2 tabs.  One for gmail, one for geekhack. 

Eitherway, chill out.  Your beef is not here.

[HoffmanMyster]

Question: Do you ever use the "view unread" feature or another button that otherwise takes you to the last read message you saw in a thread?  (it would have topicseen#new at the end)

Because I'm no coding guru, but I have been around here long enough to realize that if you do use that and a link were to open in your tab and you clicked back, it would *not* take you back to the same post you were on (it would take you to the first post on the next page).  That would be annoying, wouldn't it?

Now maybe you don't browse GH this way, and that's fine, we don't all have to do things the same way, but implementing what you are suggesting would alter the way that tons of people browse GH and would fundamentally break a very non-trivial feature that we have.

I'm not sure why this has you so worked up, but hopefully this explanation can help with understanding why we "broke" the website.

[jacobolus]

How about this.  If you don't like how your browser acts, get a different browser. 

I do like how my browser acts. My browser does the same thing every time I click a link.... except when the website creator has explicitly broken things.

Website creators: don’t do that.

There’s no trivial way for a browser to prevent websites from overriding default behavior, because sometimes such overrides may be essential. Web app creators need to be granted full freedom to do what they want with user input to enable many types of useful applications.

But with that power comes commensurate responsibility. Website owners that flaunt that power and break default behavior without some compelling special need are basically telling their users to **** off. As a user, that pisses me off.

[jacobolus]

Because I'm no coding guru, but I have been around here long enough to realize that if you do use that and a link were to open in your tab and you clicked back, it would *not* take you back to the same post you were on (it would take you to the first post on the next page).  That would be annoying, wouldn't it?

Actually browsers are really good about making the back button most always do the right thing in cases like this.

[Melvang]

How about this.  If you don't like how your browser acts, get a different browser. 

I do like how my browser acts.

Apparently you don't or you wouldn't be here with this thread and level of language.  Remember there are a lot of kids and underage folks who view this site as well.

The language doesn't offend me (US Navy Vet) but it very well may offend others.

[jacobolus]

The language doesn't offend me (US Navy Vet) but it very well may offend others.

Luckily geekhack also defaults to bleeping out nasty language, so the delicate youth should be safe. If you’re seeing any '****s' then you have manually changed that setting indicating you don’t mind seeing them.

[HoffmanMyster]

Because I'm no coding guru, but I have been around here long enough to realize that if you do use that and a link were to open in your tab and you clicked back, it would *not* take you back to the same post you were on (it would take you to the first post on the next page).  That would be annoying, wouldn't it?

Actually browsers are really good about making the back button most always do the right thing in cases like this.

Maybe you should try it again. 

If you hit 'back' and return to a "topicseen#new" URL, you will be taken to the next page, as it refreshes the previous page.  Unless Safari is vastly different from every other browser I've used.

[jacobolus]

Actually browsers are really good about making the back button most always do the right thing in cases like this.

Maybe you should try it again. 

If you hit 'back' and return to a "topicseen#new" URL, you will be taken to the next page, as it refreshes the previous page.  Unless Safari is vastly different from every other browser I've used.

Can you give a precise set of steps to do? I’m not seeing any bad behavior here.

Anyway, if the back button is breaking, that’s usually also something the website is doing wrong.

In any event “our site was breaking the back button” is not a good reason to also break links.

[HoffmanMyster]

Can you give a precise set of steps to do? I’m not seeing any bad behavior here.

Hmm, I'm not able to recreate it now.  I wonder if it only works when you view it through the unread posts link (it appends a different #new tag on the end).  Peculiar.

I think the more important question here is why are you taking your anger out on the few people daring enough to help you?   

[jacobolus]

I think the more important question here is why are you taking your anger out on the few people daring enough to help you?   

I’m not taking my anger out on anyone. I’m just ranting to a web forum. Isn’t that at least 50% of everything on web forums?

I guess I can go back to ranting about keyboards now.

As for why I’m upset... two reasons:

(1) I’ve spent years working as a web developer, and in general engineers’ culture of disrespect toward users bothers me greatly. Websites have replaced the previous systems whereby end users had control over their environments. For example, with Usenet/NNTP, every participant could read discussions and post using whatever software they wanted, display things however they liked, use whatever kind of text editing tool, etc. With a web forum, we’re now all placed at the mercy of some central developer, who has to decide for everyone how things should work. When that one central person makes decisions that are user-hostile, most people either don’t consciously notice, or don’t even realize that those design decisions were explicitly made by someone. Most people in general have a kind of Stockholm syndrome relationship with computer software, where they’ve been abused so much for so long that they just think “well that’s how things are.” Because of this, I think that web developers have a very great responsibility to not break things. When they screw up it shouldn’t just be shrugged at; it should be fixed.

(2) This particular annoyance is like a rock in your shoe... where that rock is glued in and you can’t even shake it out if you try. It’s not really a big deal the first few times; after all, I can always right-click the link, copy the URL to the clipboard, and paste it into my URL bar if I want to. But then I forget to do that, and I keep forgetting, because it’s a pain in the ass thing to do, and 90%+ of the other websites on the web just do the normal expected thing without any special action on my part. After like the 1000th time, I’m finally annoyed enough to come post about it.

[jacobolus]

Note: I’m not actually personally mad at anyone here, or any geekhacker at all. This is a decision made by the developers of the forum software, and apparently can’t be trivially fixed. I might go poke around in the forum software to see what’s causing it, but no promises... I have keyboard **** to work on.

Re-reading, I think my posts can probably be read with a more aggressive/harsher/more personal tone of voice than intended. I’m just slightly frustrated (at this and several other things) at the end of a long day, and that can get me a bit snarky/ranty.

I do appreciate the suggestions. Hugs all around.

On that note, I’m going to go have a beer.

[Coreda]

There's no way I'm reading through all that text above, but why not just change the browser preference? If you're on Firefox or Opera classic then it's a setting change away from forcing all links to open in the same tab, pretty simple.

I use such settings as I care about this as well, so I made a Google search to find solutions years ago  Never had a link open from GH in a new tab, so until this thread didn't even realize it was a default 

[jacobolus]

In Firefox you can do this via about:config; it’s not in the main preferences. I have this enabled in Firefox, but I only use Firefox for particular things, and in general I prefer Safari.

I have various reasons for not using Firefox or Opera (and don’t get me started on Chrome, I hate that browser), but they’re kind of irrelevant to the topic at hand.

[Coreda]

Would have thought you'd be using a decent browser with so much talk on user preference Safari is usable for the most basic of browser abilities, but it is limited feature-wise.

Oh well, you have plenty of suggestions to go by in the meantime.

[jacobolus]

Would have thought you'd be using a decent browser with so much talk on user preference Safari is usable for the most basic of browser abilities, but it is limited feature-wise.

Unfortunately all the browsers have their own separate flaws. With the way I use a browser, Chrome can’t keep up. It chews up CPU and leaks memory like there’s no tomorrow, and my whole computer slows down; not to mention, its graphical rendering had all kinds of bugs last time I tried it (a couple years ago, admittedly).

I generally like Firefox, but it has many UI quirks that make it not really fit in as a Mac app, and there are various aspects of its design that I dislike.

I find that Safari is generally okay. It renders pages properly and efficiently, it plays nice with my machine’s resources (especially battery life), and it doesn’t **** things up, for the most part. It could definitely be better though.

My favorite browsers back in the day were Camino and OmniWeb, for different reasons, but unfortunately neither was able to keep up and survive, for business/political reasons.

[jacobolus]

Some reddit developer just added this “feature” to Reddit a few days ago for non-logged-in users. The thread about the change is a hoot:
https://www.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/2kp7zt/reddit_change_defaulting_to_opening_links_in_a/

[HoffmanMyster]

Some reddit developer just added this “feature” to Reddit a few days ago for non-logged-in users. The thread about the change is a hoot:
https://www.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/2kp7zt/reddit_change_defaulting_to_opening_links_in_a/

I noticed this right away, since I browse reddit logged out at work sometimes.  I thought my browser was broken.  Logged in, and it behaves normally now.      That's a really frustrating change.

And fragmenting the behaviour of the site based on properties of the user?  That seems highly inefficient.

[cookie]

Can't help me, I find the OP quite offensive... He is refusing totally legit solutions, blaming the "website creator" for a certain behaviour of the website?
Come on... chill out.

[tbc]

okay, i'm a professional web dev that has done both public facing and internal sites so i'm pretty sue i'm qualified to talk on this matter.


you're ****ed.  just install a user extension or you'll be forever copypastaing for the rest of the internet.


so why has default link behavior changed?:  because the original usecase of the internet has changed.  the browser was originally a way to view text documents.  does facebook or flickr (hell...even gh?) look like text documents?

damn right they don't.  if the internet/html was originally meant for viewing pictures, then you can be damn sure that links would open in new windows by default.

why are web programmers changing the default link behavior on a site by site basis?  because that is the best way to ensure we ca use better modern techniques while nor breaking old sites.  why don't you have a choice?  you do.  just install a browser extension.

further reading:

why is opening in the same tab bad for photoheavy sites?  because you would have to rerender the page if you ever wanted to go back.

isn't that what caching is supposed to fix?  no.  caching saves you the effort of redownloading the pictures.  it does not save the browser from having to redraw the page though.  maybe not a big deal on a desktop, but it's a HUGE deal on mobile.  guess what?  browser extensions are much rarer for mobile browsers.  then should mobile browsers open links in new tabs by default?  welll...doesn't that just bring us back to the original inconsistent UI problem?

[jacobolus]

why are web programmers changing the default link behavior on a site by site basis?  because that is the best way to ensure we ca use better modern techniques while nor breaking old sites.  why don't you have a choice?  you do.  just install a browser extension.

No, the reason they do it is because it helps their ad impression and “user engagement” metrics. It has very little to do with anyone’s preference.

Here’s a thing from 2008: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/07/01/should-links-open-in-new-windows/

[tbc]

...

on sites with no ads?

[cookie]

This guy clearly don't want help... I am out

[jacobolus]

This guy clearly don't want help... I am out

I think you missed the part where this was a thread from two weeks ago where I was ranting when I had a bad day, and then it was over, also two weeks ago.

I’m really not sure what you think you’re adding.

[jacobolus]

...

on sites with no ads?

We’re talking about facebook etc...?

As for the developers of the SMF forum software, I have no idea. My guess is they were just copying what they’d seen elsewhere without thinking about it.