Something that can really bug me is when I am visiting a blog and I left click on a link to see if it is interesting and it brings me to a new site when I wasn't really ready to leave. Oh wait, sounds familiar doesn't it. Yes, my links usually do that. Good grief...
So you are cruising the CoffeeShop and you find a link to wonderful free textures from Shadowhouse Creations, you click on it and you download a few textures. Oh, but you didn't get a chance to read the rest of the CoffeeShop post and download the action there. Now you have to press back a few times to find it. Or you might get distracted and forget about where you were initially. Darn it, you say, why didn't I right click and select open in a new tab or window???
There is an easy fix that I was blissfully unaware of until now. See, I learn as I go and usually fly by the seat of my pants. A brilliant reader commented on one of my posts telling me how to tweak the html code so when you click on an image or text you linked via Blogger (or any website I imagine) it opens automatically in a new tab (Firefox, better) or a new window (IE8, not as great). Thank you wonderful reader!!! You are the best. :-)
As you can see in the image above, you can add clickable links to both images and text in your post. If you want to make the link open in a new window, simple paste target="_blank" in the beginning of the html.
This html add can be a great way to keep people on your site if they click on an outside link, especially in Firefox (which opens a new tab rather than a new window which can clutter your screen, another reason to leave IE8 in the dust!). If you use IE8 and hate having a new window pop up, you have the option to left click and open a new screen OR right click and open in a new tab as you could do before the tweak. Either way you are not driving your readers away.
Like all things, some people will love that you did this on your blog, others will curse you. Someone compared it to music on sites. Music personally doesn't bother me because I haven't installed my speakers yet. ;-) And I don't watch videos because I have sloooow internet, so those are out for me too. Poor Rita! Are you crying for me yet? :-)
So if you are interested, it is a super easy tweak. Just use it in moderation!!! And check out the free Firefox browser if you haven't already. Internet Explorer 8 is painfully slow on my computer, but Firefox is brilliantly fast. Just something to think about when you have nothing else important going on. You can use both browsers on your computer at the same time if you want. I log on one Yahoo account on IE8 (SLOOOOOW) and another Yahoo account on Firefox. Did you know you could do that?
Now, who wants to go through my blog and edit some of my links. Anyone? Anyone? Anyone?
OK, Heather, my amazing little sister. Remember that Christmas long ago when you wanted to give me something extra special? You knew I loved snakes, so you kindly captured a cute little copperhead, put it in a mason jar, and I unwrapped it Christmas Eve? Do you remember how excited (terrified) I was when I opened my gift?
Sure you said you didn't know it was a poisonous snake. Yeah right. That year you wanted all of my Christmas gifts, and nothing was going to hold you back. You owe me big time! :-) And I would still like to know how you caught it without getting bit yourself.
If you have any questions, please post them them in my CoffeeShop Flickr Group!
