HN Suggestion: Can we please set links to open in a a new tab by default?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5966176

by toddhd • 13 years ago

6 6 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

robbiea• 13 years ago

I personally think control + click is not that difficult.

toddhd• 13 years ago

"Click" is 50% easier :)

I do UI\UX design and coding for a living, so when I look at things like this, it flags me. For example, let's say that someone designed a car where you had to stick your finger in your ear while turning the key to start it. I could honestly say to you, "It's not that difficult to stick your finger in your ear while turning the key", and that's true enough. But... would you buy that car? I mean, why is it really necessary in the first place?

Most news aggregate web sites that I visit on a daily basis link to a new tab. This is very helpful, because I can browse down the page and click the links I'm interested in without losing the page I'm on at the time, then go read the articles, and tab back and forth to the list of news articles I was looking at. This works well and is how I "expect" it to work.

As the owner of a news aggregate web site, I want people to be "on and reading" my site. I don't want them to navigate away from my site, I want them to STAY on my site. To that end, having every single link on the page navigate away from the site makes no sense whatsoever, and requires extra care on behalf of my readers to use the site in a way that it should really work in the first place. That's inefficient and not in the best interests of HN or its readers.

shyn3• 13 years ago

This seems more demographic oriented.

If this was a how to site for people new to the internet open in a new tab would make sense but because the users on this site are more likely to be power users the control + click is almost second nature. I guess going the other way of ctrl + click opening in same tab could work also.

On mobile this seems to be a actual pain point because press and hold then open in a new tab is a hassle.

mavhc• 13 years ago

There's an option in browsers to choose to open in a new tab if the link doesn't, but no option for the opposite.

ig1• 13 years ago

You could easily write a chrome plugin that added that functionality (it'd be 4-5 lines of code) if it's an issue for you.

ColinWright• 13 years ago

For me, I have the option of opening in a new tab by using middle-click, or opening in the same tab with left-click, and I use both options. If stories opened in new tabs by default then you would remove from me one of the options I use, without providing any benefit.

Oddly enough, this has been asked about before, and there has been some previous discussion. Here's a search:

https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=title%3A%28ope...

There have also been people who have supplied GreaseMonkey scripts and bookmarklets. You might like to have a look at a few of these to see what I mean:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3560941

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2469065

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4880204

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5085659

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1866268

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3549314

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5284186

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2353291

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3695029

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=516933

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1621892

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5919030

HN Suggestion: Can we please set links to open in a a new tab by default?

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