Written on August 22nd, 2005 at 10:08 pm by Darren Rowse

31 Days to Building a Better Blog - Day 22

31 Days to Building a Better Blog 6 comments

Day 22 has arrived in the 31 Day Project and here are the submitted posts from readers.

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6 Responses to “31 Days to Building a Better Blog - Day 22”

  • Andrew Kaufmann

    August 23rd, 2005 6:12 am

    I wanted to leave a comment about the “Proper Use of Your Blog Links” on the author’s site, but it would not let me (an error about my email address not being valid — which it is…)

    So I figure I’d leave it here.

    An important reason a lot of people don’t use the “target” attribute in their anchor tag to open a new window is that in proper XHTML 1.0, that is not allowed. A site with that code will not validate.

    The proper workaround is to use javascript to open a new window — but that’s not nearly as convenient.

    That leaves many a designer in a quandary — do I want a validating site or a site that I can easily link to documents from, but open in a new window?

    I decided to have all links open within the same window on my site. I decided to leave the choice of spawning browser windows up to my readers. Most people know how to open a link in a new window on their system, and I trust them to do that if they want to remain on my site.

    I am not a fan of sites that assume I want a link opened in a new window. It’s one of those things that can really drive me away.

  • Darren Rowse

    August 23rd, 2005 8:56 am

    I agree Andrew - as I posted it I wondered if i should say so (as I’ve tried to be neutral in posting links) but I’m not a fan of opening links in new windows either. I’m a believer that if people want a new window they will open it themselves. Yes you run the risk of losing a reader but you also won’t make your readers angry about it.

  • HART

    August 23rd, 2005 10:47 am

    AARRGGHH!! Not the target=”_blank” argument again!

    Yes .. code is poetry but there is a lot of pretty lousy poetry out there if you ask me - this is one of them. That’s all I will say about it.

  • Andrew Kaufmann

    August 24th, 2005 5:33 am

    Well, the argument is less about “pretty” code and more about following standards. The standard says no target=”_blank”. There’s a lot to be said for following standards.

  • Christian Connett

    August 25th, 2005 1:04 pm

    Alright, I have read through and through the net, through this Blog, even checked out Andrew’s website (added him to my Blogroll). I have even CHANGED my original Blog post.

    I am studying how to be a great Blogger, and a better writer. I have also been toying with utilizing a custom-made Blog system (my site).

    First off, I have changed the whole idea of opening links in another window… You guys, I wish that I had my comments fixed a lot sooner, it is fixed now, so please leave a message after the beep.

    Anyway, I am going to start purging the target=_blank!!!

    Yea… Please forgive me for being hasty. But, I digress. My original thoughts were that you would keep your site open for the viewer/reader. They would not ‘lose’ your site…

    So, target=_blank = no.

    Thank you Darren, Andrew, Hart, and Dawn C… I am a changed man!!

    Christian Connett, CPM

  • Iowa Business 101 » Blog Archive » Proper Use of Your Blog Links

    September 16th, 2005 4:34 am

    [...] To ProBlogger thinking… [...]


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