New Link o' the Week, and Seeking Feedback
January 31, 2005
7:23 p.m., MT
Ugh. It's been one of those days where it seems impossible to get anything done in a reasonable amount of time. I can't afford many of those, yet they seem to pop up more and more often -- guess I need to figure out where I'm wasting my time and change what I'm doing.

Anyway, speaking of changing what I'm doing, I'd like some feedback from regular readers (either in the comments or via private email) on a navigational element of the blog and web site. I've long been in the habit of forcing a link to open a new browser window, thinking that was the most convenient way of getting a user to information off-site while making it easy to come back to the blog entry or essay. But by coding links that way, I am removing my customers' abilities to choose to navigate in the ways they want. Does anyone have a preference on this Matter of Utmost Importance that he or she would like to share with me? If there's a clear preference one way or other, I'll adopt it in future blog entries. One vote per visitor, but if I know you're a regular, your vote will be weighted more heavily.

And last, for something interesting and fun, this week's featured link: Volcano World. Based in the unlikely location of Grand Forks, North Dakota, Volcano World is a hotbed (yes, I had to say that ) of information and resources for all things volcanological. The snolfs and I happily browsed the site for quite some time, learning all kinds of interesting things and seeing some very impressive photographs. If you're into hot real estate, check it out.

Sunni

Replies: 11 individuals have opined

On Tuesday, February 1st, charley said:

i think i'm starting to get it. thanks. sounds like to me the biggest problem with IE perception comes from the late 90s. they may never get over it, though why it matters who uses free software, i'm not really sure. this stuff is too weird. anyway, youdamost, snakeachista.

On Tuesday, February 1st, Sunni said:

Charley, it's been a very long time -- pre-virus days, IIRC -- since I used IE by choice. I never tried to tweak it a lot; I started out using text browsers, then Netscape, which I liked a lot until it got too bogged down with cruft. I never considered going to IE because, by then, it was pretty well known that its security was pretty shoddy. Now, that may not have made a difference for somebody like me -- or you -- who isn't afraid to tweak settings and look into stuff. But I do have a problem with a product that purports to be secure from the box, but isn't. I also like having a lot of control over my software, and many MS products don't give me that. (You'd probably faint if I told you how many browsers I have installed on my machine.)

If IE works well for you, and without security problems, then more power to you. I'm a different flavor of customer, and something else is likely to better suit my preferences.

On Tuesday, February 1st, charley said:

ahhh, very nice. thank you.

okay, what am i missing in all this "something other than IE" talk? i don't see any reason to switch. no complaints about IE. i love it! what's going on?

since i don't install programs lightly, i won't try firefox or anything else, but is there something about a non-IE browser that when people try it they say, "damn, this is the best thing ever!"

went to the mozilla site and tried to read up. saw nothing to persuade me to take a chance on disturbing my very solid setup (as i've written, you can do the tabs advantage with stock IE6 in windows; i have 7 browser windows open right now).

only problem i've had with IE6 is something eudora caused. somebody clue me... or is that impossible?

On Tuesday, February 1st, Sunni said:

Sure, chaps, argue away -- it is a site for individualists, after all.

Bill, your browser progression matches mine well, with the exception of my use of Avant. Decent enough, fast, but I've had problems with it. And, being built on an IE frame, I've never really trusted it.

On Tuesday, February 1st, charley said:

tom, are you serious? i'm wondering if somebody had a web page where the background and text were all the same color, you'd say, "no big deal -- just right-click, select 'view source code', change one of the colors, save that as an .html file on your desktop, then read away! your options are preserved!"

your argument presumes (i hope) that what the link's going to do is known ahead of time. as bill pointed out well, it's an issue of defaults. standards. you're talking about proposing a standard change, which is fine. however, it shouldn't be treated as something it's not.

um, can we argue on your blog, sunni?

On Tuesday, February 1st, Bill St. Clair said:

I was being nice before. Let me say it more strongly. I consider it extremely bad mojo to make your links open in a new window by default. I have grown accustomed to it in the sites I frequent that do it, but I still often curse when I encounter it. Clicking a link means to me to open the link in the same window. Different browsers have different ways of opening in a new tab or new window, foreground or background, but the default should be to open in the same window, unless there's a good reason to do otherwise.

On Sunni's other topic, introduced in her comment, I used Opera until I discovered Firefox, and used that until I (recently) discovered K-Meleon. Firefox takes a long time to start up on my machine, but after that it's quite fast, though not as fast as K-Meleon. It's definitely more polished.

On Tuesday, February 1st, Tom Knapp said:

User control isn't really a consideration, because in most browsers the user has total control regardless of how the link is formatted. Sure, there's a default, but for example:

1) You have a link opening in the same page. I can right-click and open it in a new window, or in a new tab (I use Mozilla) if I prefer it over leaving the page I'm on.

2) You have a link opening in a new window. I can right click and open it in a new tab instead, or right-click, cut-n-paste the URL into the current window's location bar, and thereby leave your page to go to the new one.

So really, it's a matter of whatever you think the optimum balance between your desire to keep your page on their screen and their ease of doing what they want to do. Personally, I have my sites default to opening in a new window. If they only want one window open, they can do as I described above, or just close the original window, or whatever.

Regards,
Tom Knapp

On Tuesday, February 1st, charley said:

you know my pref (user control).

not sure i agree that bill and freeman have opposing positions. they both make sense, but (no offense, especially since freeman's not even using the product anymore) bill's position can be seen as freeman's position with more information added; he recognizes the value of a page opening in a new window, and explains how it can be done regularly without losing options.

my surfing was transformed when i found out about the shift-click deal. it allowed my existing technique (dial-up guy) of opening up most things in new windows to be even easier.

On Tuesday, February 1st, Sunni said:

I could've predicted this ... two opposite responses from the first two comments! You both offer good support for your respective positions, too.

FLC, I tried Firefox ... it seemed really slow; I preferred the older Mozilla better. But now I'm using K-Meleon, and even though I've not figured everything out yet I like it much better. Very fast!

On Monday, January 31st, freeman said:

This issue is really irrelevant to me since I use Firefox for my browsing needs. Firefox's tabbed browsing, which allows for multiple pages being accessed without opening new windows, eliminates this dilemna and is perhaps the greatest browser invention ever!

If I were using IE, I'd probably prefer using links that open in a new window. Since I have a dial-up internet connection, that would save me the trouble of reloading the pages that hosted those links with a typically slow dial-up speed.

On Monday, January 31st, Bill St. Clair said:

I prefer links that do NOT automatically open in a new page, unless they are on a page full of links intended to be used as a launch pad (like my links page). I can hold down the control or shift key or right click and select from the menu if I want to keep the source page around.