Thursday, December 17, 2009

Blogger UnWrapped: Making Images/Text Links Open in a New Window or Tab!


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!

18 comments:

  1. Thank you for this! I knew you could do this on wordpress blogs, but never knew how in blogger. Maybe your sister will want to go through my blog too. Or I have I sister, hmm, I think I found something else to add to my Christmas list!

    www.cdycattle.blogspot.com

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  2. Your so right a big PITA! THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!

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  3. Personally, I hate it when sites open a new window on me! But then I like to keep my desktop very clean and uncluttered. (Unlike the rest of my life...)
    Is there any way to make it open in a new tab instead?

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  4. Just realize that plenty of visitors hate when a site designer assumes they don't know how to open in a new tab or window if that's what they want and force it on them and stop visiting those links.

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  5. Utahdoula and Heather, the cool thing about this tweak is you can still right click and open the link in a new tab just like before. But if a reader just clicks, the new window opens and they are not lost in cyberspace. :-)

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  6. Ah, but I am not lost in cyberspace when I leave a site by clicking on a link. I am right where I want to be. I only click on a link when I *want* to go there. I'm done with the previous site. I am leaving. The only reason to have it open in a new window is to force someone to keep YOUR site open. When I click, I am done and want to leave, and so tricks like this annoy me.

    Just thought I'd get this perspective out there before people get all ga-ga thinking this is awesome. Like most ways of doing things, some will like it, some hate it.
    Now, shall we talk about music on web sites? That would be REALLY controversial, LOL!

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  7. Windows Live Writer will do this for you too. Much easier to just check a box than to mess with HTML code.

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  8. In Firefox (my favorite browser!) this tweak opens the link in a new tab, not in a new window. Another reason to run screaming from IE8!

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  9. This kind of "stuff" is why you're so valuable to this industry! I personally am looking forward to adding this feature to my blog so that my site doesn't close. Thanks for the tip:)

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  10. I finally got around to using your tip. Don't know why I waited so long.

    Thank you much!

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  11. thank its very informative post. keep it up

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  12. Hi Rita, thanks for some great tips on this blog. This one opens a new TAB in IE8 too, so it's not all bad. :-)

    Ian

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  13. Love this tip! Thank you so much! As I do card-making stuff & need to link to others at times, it's been a pain to have to NOT have it open in a new window or tab. Not any more, though, thanks to you. VERY appreciative of this super simple tip.

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  14. You are brilliant!
    Thanks for all the great tips. I've been working on making my blog better over the last couple of days and your tutes have been invaluable!
    Mercedes

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  15. Woo-hoo! I just did this, after a little puzzled searching, and it worked like a dream! Thank you!

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  16. Thanks for that. So many other tutorials were more complicated. Your fix had a stunning simplicity. As for comments about new windows being annoying, I would suggest that many surfers do not consciously think about opening a new tab and that people reading this post are not typical of the majority.

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Thank you for taking the time to leave a message, I love reading them! All comments are personally moderated by me and I will post and answer them them as soon as possible.
Rita