Comments on: Replacing target=”_blank” for Strict XHTML using JQuery (redux)

By: Leonid Sharlandzhiev

Leonid Sharlandzhiev — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 12:44:35 +0000

@ Frank

The live() method has some flaws so you might need to use delegate() when working with arrays of elements like this:

$(‘.storycontent’).delegate(“a[href*='http://']:not([href*='"+location.hostname+"'])”, ‘click’, function() {
window.open($(this).attr(‘href’));
return false;
});

By: firebug

firebug — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 13:41:09 +0000

$(document).ready(function(){
$(‘a[rel*=external]‘).click(function(){
this.target= “_blank”;
});

By: Brendan

Brendan — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 15:45:17 +0000

If you don’t want to use _target at all (cause it is kinda cheating, isn’t it?), this is what I did:

$(“a.pdf”).mouseover(function() {
pdfLink = this.href;
$(this).attr(“href”,”#”);
});

$(“a.pdf”).click(function() { window.open(pdfLink); });

$(“a.pdf”).mouseout(function() {
$(this).attr(“href”,pdfLink);
pdfLink = “”;
});

You pick your target (for me, it was things that linked out to PDFs, so I had a class called ‘pdf’). On mouseover, you put the href into a variable, you strip the href from the tag so that the link doesn’t open in the parent window as well. On click, you open that variable in the new window. On mouseout, put the variable back in the href.

Since we’re using JavaScript anyways, it’s a solution that avoids _target completely, and it allows for a functioning link if the user has JavaScript turned off.

Hope it helps someone!

Cheers,
Brendan

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 13:47:50 +0000

I find this nice way to do it:

$(“a[rel*=external]“).attr( “target”, “_blank” );

It’s valid, since target is still an attribute in the DOM definition.

By: Frank

Frank — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:13:49 +0000

Remember – if you happen to generate an external link or two dynamically after the page loads, the new link won’t “pop” into a new window – unless you bind the click event to the external links with live().

$(‘a[rel*=external]‘).live(‘click’, function(){
window.open($(this).attr(‘href’));
return false;
});

This ensures that any new elements are bound to the modified click event, too.

By: Evan Carroll

Evan Carroll — Thu, 06 May 2010 16:33:28 +0000

This is my favorite solution to this problem, because it uses JQuery, and doesn’t assume the XHTML capable browser has implemented HTML4 “target” attribute on links.

By: Keith

Keith — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 00:28:26 +0000

Man, that is sweet. Thanks!

By: Justin Scheetz

Justin Scheetz — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 13:04:36 +0000

This will search your entire page for external links and make them open in a new window. Try it out!

$(function() {
$(“a[href*='http://']:not([href*='"+location.hostname+"'])”).click( function() {
window.open(this.href);
return false;
});
});

By: zmpl

zmpl — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 02:11:56 +0000

Another possible attribute name is

xlink:show=”new”

from the XLink spec.

By: martin(ish) § Blog: Post: Open External Links in a New Window Using jQuery

martin(ish) § Blog: Post: Open External Links in a New Window Using jQuery — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 02:21:04 +0000

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