[Mediawiki-l] External links in new window?

=James Birkholz= j.birchwood at verizon.net
Sun Jan 9 16:47:12 UTC 2005


I'm in agreement with Morten here. General ideals are fine and I like to 
control my windows as much as the next guy, but since my site and WikiPedia 
use the same software and most users will likely be using the default 
skins, if I have a link to a WikiPedia article (which is likely an article 
that isn't the subject that would bring users to my site), I don't want to 
confuse them. They should know that they've transferred and diverged to a 
different Wiki, and it should be made easy for them to return to their 
original thread of research without having to "back" xx times. (My audience 
is heavily weighted towards permanently novice users ie. "elderly").  The 
only way I know to do this is to use the new window option. It's a courtesy 
that I appreciate in similar situations on other sites.

Since no one has yet answered my specific question ("How do you...?") but 
have only had some say "You shouldn't...", then I guess the answer is "You 
can't". Given that assumption, then my next thought is to wait until I have 
time to learn how to make skins and replace all the skins and reset the 
default config so that the window appearance is radically different from 
WikiPedia's. Another thought would be to pop up a "You've left MySite.com" 
window, but that gets too annoying for frequent use.

I was just hoping there was a simple syntax option in place.

James

At 01:17 PM 1/9/05, you wrote:
>I agree generally, that it can be a nuisance when webplaces open pages in new
>windows. But then everything can be abused.
>
>If you want to build a community, it is valuable to be able to differentiate
>between what is going on, on the inside of the site, inside the community 
>and what
>is external from the site. Targeting external links to new windows helps 
>create
>that feeling, overriding user settings.
>
>I want my portal to be friendly also to users, who may not be so familiar 
>with the
>internet, and the more so with the wiki concept. Yet I still want to use
>interwikilinks and such for key concepts that are best explained elsewhere. I
>therefore want my users to familiarize themselves with my site as a safe, 
>local
>place, and keep them there, being sent into the abyss of wikimania in 
>wikipedia,
>without losing track of crewscut.com.
>
>Is there anyone who has made a hack or extension for the purpose of targeting
>interwikilinks and external links to new windows?
>
>Morten :-)
>
>
>Sam Rowe wrote:
>
> > On Sat, Jan 08, 2005 at 04:07:03PM +0200, NSK wrote:
> > # On Saturday 08 January 2005 06:27, =James Birkholz= wrote:
> > # > Is there a syntax for external links, that will cause them to open 
> in a new
> > # > browser window?
> > #
> > # do not do that, it is bad design.
> >
> > Amen to that! Let your users decide if they want new windows.
> > _______________________________________________
> > MediaWiki-l mailing list
> > MediaWiki-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
>
>--
>Crews Cut Community
>http://www.crewscut.com
>
>Morten Blaabjerg
>Dronningensgade 4B, DK-5000 Odense C.
>Tlf. +45 65 90 60 88
>
>
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James Birkholz
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http://www.Posen-L.com




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