New Windows with HTML:
Forcing a link to open in a new window is simply a matter of adding an additional attribute to the link's code. Suppose you have a straightforward link to a page. The visitor sees something like...
Here's the code...
<p>Visit <a href="http://www.fontstuff.com">Fontstuff</a> today!</p>
Now let's modify the link to force it to open the linked page in a new window. What the visitor sees is no different...
Visit Fontstuff today!
...but when they click the link a new browser window opens displaying the linked page inside. Here's the code...
<p>
Visit <a href="http://www.fontstuff.com" target="_blank">Fontstuff</a> today!
</p>
The addition of the TARGET attribute to a hyperlink lets you dictate where the linked page opens. To open a new page I have used target="_blank" but there are others...
target="_blank" Opens the linked page in a new window.
target="_self" Opens the linked page in the same window. This is the default for ordinary pages and doesn't need to be specified. It has a use when working with frames.
target="_parent" Opens the linked page in the parent frame in a frames page.
target="_top" Opens the linked page in a full (i.e. top level) window when used in frames pages. This one is useful for letting a linked page 'break out' of a frame.
In fact, you can insert any window name that you might have defined elsewhere. Using the JavaScript technique outlined below you could create a new window with a particular name, then use this method to cause all subsequent linked pages to open in it. (Find out how to do this and check out the demo!)
Setting a Default:
If you want all the links on your page to open in a new window you don't have to modify every one. It's a simple matter to apply a default setting for the page so that all the links behave the same way. Here's how...
Insert the following code...
<base target="_blank">
...into the header of your document's HTML (i.e. anywhere between the <head> and </head> tags but not inside any other pairs of tags already there). You can substitute "_blank" with one of the other names if appropriate.
