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Internal resources should avoid to become external links, as default
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Description

For some reasons I see that most of the links open in an external tab, as default.

Steps to reproduce:

What happens:

  • all absolute links open in a new tab
  • all relative links open in a new tab
  • only wiki pages open in the same tab

Expected behavior:

  • Not all absolute links should open in a new tab - for example, links starting with "https://we.phorge.it/" are probably better to be opened in the same tab
  • Relative links are also probably better to be opened in the same tab

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You see that most of the links open in a new tab as default. Why?

Having indiscriminate external links is not a best practice in the web. See this Task that has a more deep thought about this topic:

With that in mind, since I don't want to change things too much, I would start by changing the default, not for all the links, but only for links pointing to an internal destination:

This is a compromise, because there was probably a good reason for opening links in an external tab and it doesn't seem fair to me to just undo this for all the links.

This then still allows in the future to see how it goes, and, if you want, to possibly just put all the links as default to open in the same tab, unless there are strong usability issues already mentioned in T15172.

Truth table of the proposal (assuming that your local URL is https://we.phorge.it/):

https://duckduckgo.comChange Log#anchorhttps://we.phorge.it//config/
Before this changeexternalinternalinternalexternalexternal
After this changeexternalinternalinternalinternalinternal

Test on your local Phorge

This is just an example Remarkup that you can use to test the situation locally:

== Links that should NOT open in an external tab as default ==

http://phorge.localhost/phriction/edit/3/

<http://phorge.localhost/#asd>

<http://phorge.localhost/phriction/edit/3/>

[[ http://phorge.localhost/phriction/edit/3/ | http://phorge.localhost/phriction/edit/3/ ]]

[[ /phriction/edit/3/ | /phriction/edit/3/ ]]

== Still internal links as default ==

[[ / ]]

[[ #asd | #asd ]]

== Still External Links as default ==

https://google.com/

<https://google.com/>

[[ https://google.com/| https://google.com/ ]]

Event Timeline

valerio.bozzolan renamed this task from Internal links should open in the same tab as default to Internal pages should open in the same tab as default.Thu, Mar 23, 10:33
valerio.bozzolan claimed this task.
valerio.bozzolan triaged this task as Wishlist priority.

I agree with this, but I think we should let this wait for broader discussion - there maybe good counter-arguments.

In general, I think the rule should be "default to open in same tab", because it's a lot easier for the user to force new tab then it is to force same tab.
Exceptions are

  • cases where navigation can cause data-loss (forms)
  • links explicitly marked with a relevant icon
  • maybe external links, because there's sort of a norm for that on the internet at large, and it makes it more clear to the user that it's a different context, for some value of context.

I'm not a fan of adding an icon to any external link, because it makes reading less fluent (for my eyes at least, the icon breaks the text flow)

valerio.bozzolan renamed this task from Internal pages should open in the same tab as default to Internal resources should avoid to become external links, as default.Sat, Mar 25, 11:11
valerio.bozzolan updated the task description. (Show Details)

I agree. Having said that I'm not bold enough to propose a "default: open in same tab" since at the moment we have the exact contrary. That is why I proposed this compromise based on the destination.