Critics wanted

[Skeeve]

I've recently revamped my website and would like some outside criticism.

Registering isn't required to see most of the content, so I'm not doing this to spam.

Just some honest feedback at your convenience. Link in my sig.

Thanks.

[salvorhardin]

1. Kill target='_blank' in the menu

Articles, Store, Contact Admin, and Search in the menu all have target='_blank' in their anchor tags so clicking them opens the page in a new window (or new tab for me). That's rather annoying behavior for a menu.

[Skeeve]

2. Actually you have that backwards.

The "_blank" opens it in the same window, removing the underscore opens in new window/tab.

And you are correct, for pages on the website it shouldn't do this.

But for links to other websites, I would rather it did so the person isn't "shoved away". They might forget to click "Back". :)

Thank you for pointing those out.

[salvorhardin]

3. No, that's wrong

The default behavior for anchor tags when no target is specified is to open in the same window. _blank will open a new window, except in some buggy versions of Internet Explorer 5 and 6. Your browser should be ignoring all other target names.

6.16 Frame target names

Except for the reserved names listed below, frame target names (%FrameTarget; in the DTD) must begin with an alphabetic character (a-zA-Z). User agents should ignore all other target names.

The following target names are reserved and have special meanings.

_blank
The user agent should load the designated document in a new, unnamed window.
_self
The user agent should load the document in the same frame as the element that refers to this target.
_parent
The user agent should load the document into the immediate FRAMESET parent of the current frame. This value is equivalent to _self if the current frame has no parent.
_top
The user agent should load the document into the full, original window (thus canceling all other frames). This value is equivalent to _self if the current frame has no parent.
http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/types.html#h-6.16

[Skeeve]

4. Yeah, I read that once as well..

but in PHP-Fusion, "_blank" opens on same page. At least in the News section. It defaults that way and when I post links I have to manually remove the underscore to ensure the link opens in a new page/tab.

Look at the Page Source and you'll see the links under the News section.

Weird, huh?

[charlie]

5. That's still not right

The server software will have no effect on what the browser does. It'll respond consistently to markup no matter where it comes from.

Your 'Store' link in the sidebar has a '_blank' target. Click it and you'll see it spawn a new window.

Nice looking site, BTW. I see your forum is already rolling with a healthy crew of members. Congratulations!

I'm also one who abhors links that spring new windows, so my vote would be against.

[Skeeve]

6. The News section works differently

than the Navigation section for some reason.

I don't have to manually enter the HTML for Site Links, there is a check box to 'Open in new window'.

I'm keeping the Store link as is, since it does go away from the site.

I wonder why one area would use _blank to open in new window and another would be the opposite?