BuddyPress.org

Did you pick up on the fact that this new page opening function was only to relate to pages being opened from an RSS feed?
Absolutely! Note the reference to the li.feed above. The RSS item that I looked at was set with this token what the script does is look for all instances of this element with a class of ‘feed’ and adds a new ‘target’ attribute to the anchor. As I said though this is good to go where that condition holds true, if elsewhere there are feed links that decide to change that parent li token to ‘rss’ or not place the link in a list construct, but things can be amended. The core of the script is something I use all the time when I would rather ensure that the main page is not navigated away from.

Opening new windows is generally considered to be something that should be done sparingly and only with good reason while understanding the implications thereof. It must be remembered that the general user is simply extremely unfamiliar with how something like a browser works, yes I trap new windows to tabs but if a inexperienced user is allowing new windows to open then what can happen is the classic confusion often referred to as ‘breaking the back button’ A new window opens as an overlay on top of and masking the original and this happens at lightning speed that many miss the event; this new window has no ‘history’ thus the back button has no function and that can massively confuse inexperienced users who can’t work out why it has ‘stopped’ working.

It’s not a case that one can’t do this but that we need to be aware of how we are now interacting with what is regarded as user choice and that user choice is not something that authors are meant to try and control in any significant way.

N.B I have adjusted the script posted to change the rel=”ext” to rel=”feed” as this is a more appropriate value in this instance.