MArcomage

I think that external links should open in new tabs.

Agreed.

Middle click mouse button does that :)

dimitris wrote:
Middle click mouse button does that :)

oh, it's true!
but my middle button is sooo hard to press.
I'll stick with right click -> open link in new tab

You could also do "ctrl + left click," or "command + left click" on a mac if I remember correctly

Well, we don't have this since we are trying to make webpages according to W3C recommendation. It says this:

In general, it is better not to open new windows and tabs since they can be disorienting for people, especially people who have difficulty perceiving visual content

The target attribute which does this is not even allowed in XHTML strict which we use.

Mojko wrote:

In general, it is better not to open new windows and tabs since they can be disorienting for people, especially people who have difficulty perceiving visual content

I don't agree with this rule. I say:

Nobody should leave your site.

People that are confused by new tabs will be probably more confused by the loss of the window they were at.

True, but their argument is that if the link doesn't explicitly open a new window, the user has a choice if he wants to open a new window or not.

I find it also irritating when websites open links in new tabs. It reminds me of the ancient web days of IE6 (brrrr) when every single website opened links in new windows and you ended up having 743437 IE windows opened...

If I want to open a new tab the browser gives me the choice/ability to do so.

More obnoxious than several browser windows open was clicking through to a different site and realizing you're looking it it with previous sites' navigation frames still present. Ugh.

Anyway I was talking about external links.
Links to arcomage's pages should stay in the same tab.