6 ms·
Fixing the UX of hyperlinks
- Namrog84 11y agoWhat bothers me so greatly are these new web "apps" that are trying to behave like a desktop app and have no ability to right click and open in new tab. I can think of no use case where one shouldn't be allowed to do this. I have to use some tools that are like this and even duplicTe tab causes me to navigate thru 5 pages to get back where I was
- smadge 11y agoYup. The web is fundamentally about links. If application state is not driven through hyperlinks, it doesn't belong on the web.
- onli 11y agoThe problem description makes not clear to me why this is a problem. It describes an existing solution, and there is an easier one: middle mouse button click for new tab, normal mouse button for intab load. It is always a horror when some websites try to be smart and fuck that up (looking at you, kimono – you are great but this part of your UI is not). Is there something special about those specific links as well that makes the existing solution not work? If not, I doubt that indicators would help much – the specific control we have already is better than the time-consuming task of interpreting those.
- mixmastamyk 11y agoTrue, but it doesn't work for the author because he's using a one button mac.
- christianmann 11y agoI use BetterTouchTool, a program similar to AutoHotKey for Mac, to remap three-finger-tap to middle-click in Safari and Chrome in order to allow this.
- bryogenic 11y agoOr middleclick (https://github.com/cl3m/MiddleClick https://github.com/cl3m/MiddleClick)
- meowface 11y agoBetterTouchTool is way more versatile and has tons of functionality. BetterTouch is to vim as Middleclick is to Notepad, or perhaps cat.
- provemewrong 11y agoMeh, the only thing I need is three finger tap to emulate middle click, better touch tool seems like an overkill for that sole purpose.
- meowface 11y agoI started using it for only one touch gesture to start with, too, until I realized I could control almost any navigation with swipes and taps. Swipe left and right to switch browser tabs, make a circle "refresh" motion to refresh the page, 3-finger swipe down to close a tab...
- zZorgz 11y agoHolding command is pretty much the equivalent.
- ldarby 11y agoThis is a great idea, but where's the solution to those web pages that put links in javascript that do stuff like window.open("url") that forces a new window, or do_postback("url"), that prevents you choosing to open it in a new tab? They can go die in a fire.
- zeveb 11y ago> where's the solution to those web pages that put links in javascript that do stuff like window.open("url") that forces a new window, or do_postback("url") I think a solution of hydrofluoric acid would be appropriate for them…
- semi-extrinsic 11y agoHave you read the manual on treating hydrofluoric acid burns? Recommended if you want to completely lose your appetite, especially the fingernails part. https://www.honeywell-hfacid.com/document/hf-medical-book/?download=1 https://www.honeywell-hfacid.com/document/hf-medical-book/?d...
- douche 11y agoOr, you just always use target="_blank". Problem solved. Almost never do I want to load a real hyperlink in the same tab.
- Nadya 11y agoThen the user can never click to open the link in the same tab, they have to copy the link-> open a new tab -> go to the URL. The UX problem seems to be browser-side and is there only by convention. The default should be "new tab" and "same tab" should be "hold control". This should be a user-toggled option. It makes `_blank` unnecessary and gives all control back to the user. The next step is an issue with users: most people I meet who aren't tech-savvy don't know how to open things into new tabs. Which is why `_blank` is used so liberally. It seems to me the defaults are wrong. More often than not, I want a new tab. But there are still times I don't want a new tab. I don't know of anyone who wants "new window" but I assume they must exist somewhere. Probably in hell, where they belong. /tongue in cheek
- douche 11y agoTrue, as soon as I wrote that I thought of the few counter-cases. But they are all genuine navigation cases: clicking a link in Google search results, clicking an actual nav link, etc. Most of the time, I don't want to actually navigate, I want to open the referenced material like it is a foot/end note. Far too often, I accidentally forget to ctrl-click on a link, and lose my place in the original document. Especially for something like HN, which tends to be long, and somewhat dynamic, so that items can reorder themselves or have new items added into the DOM when reloaded.
- eam 11y agoI rarely ever want to open something in a new window. I do however like opening pages in new tabs so that I can finish doing what I'm doing on the current page. I'm a Mac user. If I want to absolutely open a new tab when clicking on a hyperlink, I just hold down the command key and click on the link and ta-da it opens in a new tab (there's an equivalent for this in windows). If I want to open in a new window I just hold command + shift and click on the link.
- kevin_thibedeau 11y agoAlmost as annoying as pages filled with static content that don't follow the HTML design principles and fail to render properly with JS blocked.
- zeveb 11y agoYou don't need a new UI: just disallow the ability of a site to open a link in a new window or tab, and leave that ability in the hands of the user, where it always belonged.
- endgame 11y agoHow about people stop changing what links do, and let the user decide by via right click or ctrl+click/cmd+click?
- username223 11y agoYep. "target=_blank" is one of those things that, like pop-ups and BLINK, seemed like a good idea at the time, but proved too easy to abuse. If I want to make your site more "sticky," I'll open links in new tabs by myself. This should probably be blocked by default in most browsers.
- gizmo686 11y agoI don't think <blink> every seemed like a good idea[0]. It was an undocumented easter egg that was created so that Lynx could have some of the advanced text formatting that was coming with the new graphical browsers. [0] http://www.montulli.org/theoriginofthe%3Cblink%3Etag http://www.montulli.org/theoriginofthe%3Cblink%3Etag
- username223 11y agoThanks for the link -- great story! If only more web nuisances could be killed off so easily.
- defatigable 11y agoQuick plug for a Chrome extension I wrote that gets rid of the _blank target on links, if that behavior annoys you as much as it does me: https://goo.gl/4D1ONu https://goo.gl/4D1ONu
- Paulods 11y agoI don't think that's much of an option. For instance i live in Japan and here most users expect that things will open in a new tab. Take a look at the amazon search results page as an example http://www.amazon.co.jp/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?__mk_ja_JP=%E3%82%AB%E3%82%BF%E3%82%AB%E3%83%8A&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=playstation http://www.amazon.co.jp/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?__mk_ja_JP=%E3%82%A...
- seagreen 11y agoDoes anybody who keeps up with browser extensions know if there's a way to disable any kind of ad-hoc link handling on Firefox? When I tab-click I'd like to get a new window, always:)
- thetmkay 11y agoI was just thinking about this problem today: lack of information as to whether a link is an external link (different site), an internal link (same site) or anchor link (same page). I cmd+click everything and inevitably have four or five tabs of the same page. It's probably the most minor of inconveniences but the serendipity compelled me to comment.
- dcre 11y agoI don't think this is really a problem, but I upvoted because I like the thought experiment. I love the icons. I would not want them in my browser.
- k__ 11y agoDoes anyone really open links with left-click if they still need the current page? I always middle-click. It bothers me more that most web-sites don't indicate in- and outbound links. Often I get a bunch of links on news pages, which just let me hop around on their system, while the link text indicates that I get to a source of information.
- raymondgh 11y agoIf a link is simply to reference material (wikipedia blue links / blogs that reference earlier posts / etc), then I'd ideally like the new page to open in a new column and either occlude or squish my content to the side. I don't want to save those for later or leave what I'm doing; I want the contents of both, now.
- a3n 11y agoRight-click Open in new window would come close to the effect that you're after, without installing an addon.
- christianmann 11y agoThis seems like a good candidate for a browser extension.
- millstone 11y agoSafari does this already. It shows "Open <URL> in a new tab" in the status bar when clicking will open in a new tab, and same for windows. This text also changes in response to modifier keys. I'm surprised that Chrome doesn't do this!
- steve371 11y agoPersonally, I use add-ons to force every link to open in a new tab. Because when I click a link, it is more like reference/supplement reading, but I have not finished to consume the original page.
- gmurphy 11y agoWe considered indicating this in Chrome, but the problem was reliability - because JS can execute when you click, we actually can't tell you what will happen next, and we don't like showing unreliable UI (extensions, however, are great for this sort of thing).
- christofosho 11y agoIt'd be near if instead, these symbols were shown (but not interacted with), depending on your hover state on the link. So if you hover with control pressed, the "new tab" icon would be displayed. Normal hover would display the "current window" icon.