30
votes
Suggestion: when clicking on an external link, open it in new tab
It would be nice to have that functionality (at least as an option), so that the thread doesn't close. I personally instinctively close the tab after I am done reading instead of going back, which can be really frustrating after the realization I have nothing to read now (yeah, I know, CTRL+SHIFT+T, reopen last closed tab etc etc, but it's much more convenient to hit CTRL+W and be back where you stopped reading the thread).
Please don't! When I want to open something in a different tab, I middle-click it (Firefox) and I'm sure other browsers have similar functions.
If you implement this, please DO make it an option! Leave the decision to open a new tab to the user!
Yes, when I implement this it will be as an option (and the current behavior will be the default). My general opinion is that "open in the same tab" should always be the default except in cases where the link is for a purpose that might "interrupt" something the user was already doing. For example, the "Formatting help" link above comments are set to open in a new tab, because people probably click it while they're writing a comment, and opening in the same tab would interrupt that.
Like you said, if users want to open something in a new tab, they have the ability to do that (middle-click, ctrl-click, right click) when they want to. But if you set the link to always open in a new tab, there's no way (at least that I know of) for people to do something similar to override it to open in the same one.
Does the "front page" refresh when you return using the back button? The only reason I open everything in a new tab is so that the main page remains static while I browse content. Sorry, I'm brand new here and can't really tell if it refreshes or not. I would like to see the option available either way, though, since I'm so used to it on reddit.
I don't think it should, but some browsers seem to have different behavior related to that. Let me know if it does (and which browser you're using) and I can look into it if needed.
I'm on the latest Firefox (61.0.1) on Win10, and after playing around for a while, it doesn't appear to refresh. I know the front page doesn't change all that fast with a small group of users, but it might/will when more people are here, so it's important (to me, at least) that it remain static so that I know I've read through everything that was currently there when I first opened the site. I know people on reddit have expressed the same concern with the redesign, which for a while would open a modal for comments, that when closed would refresh the front page (I believe they've reverted that, but I don't use the redesign).
Yeah, I don't think it should change. If I recall correctly, the unwanted refreshes on reddit are happening because of a caching setting they added at some point that tells browsers they should never cache the page and always refresh, even if you're just going back to it. I shouldn't have set that on Tildes, so I don't think it should happen (but like I said, sometimes different browsers behave differently).
You may also want to set your default view to "newest" since that's a much more "stable" sort - even if it does update, everything different would come in at the top instead of being in somewhat random positions.
Interesting on the sorting, I hadn't yet noticed that. Thanks.
I'll test on a few more browsers when I get home to a desktop that has them.
Agreeing. Browsers have this feature. It's not necessary and verges on bloat.
https://secure.phabricator.com/phame/post/view/769/advanced_internet_usage_experts_only/
This discussion reminds me of this.
I use the right-click menu "Open in new tab".
I Control + Click, just to share options with folks.
I would like this feature for my laptop. I have a Lenovo which has a middle mouse button, but it does not work for opening a new tab. Having the option would be wonderful.
On some sites, this is a setting you can choose. Not sure how difficult that is.