melonfool wrote:But anyway, TLF is the only site I need to do it on. Other sites have it set up properly.
No, they have it set up in the way that
you prefer, and that is also the way that forces me to use a
much more cumbersome work-around than ctrl-click to get the way that
I prefer. I usually want the link I'm clicking on to stay on the same page because I find having windows/tabs opened for me without my having asked for it disrupts my 'mental map' of what I've got going on my screen - after encountering a site that does it the way you call "properly", I've pretty often found myself with a bewildering array of open tabs that I need to take some time to close down before I can continue, taking care not to close down the ones I had originally and actually wanted.
And I also prefer it because I'm usually finished with the page I'm on before I click on.
Sometimes I do indeed want a new window/tab, most usually because I've seen a link that I want to make certain I read, but only after I've finished what I'm currently reading, but that's uncommon enough that for me, ctrl-click for a new tab and click for staying in my current tab is clearly the right way around. I would be more sympathetic towards your preference if the way it was implemented was the other way around: if ctrl-click stayed in my current tab and click opened a new tab, it would be the wrong way around for me and the right way around for you, and I would reckon that it was best decided by a poll to see which the majority of the site's users prefer, with the losing side being mildly inconvenienced either way. But that's not how browsers work: because of the cumbersome work-around involved, those like me who prefer click to stay in the same tab would be much more inconvenienced by it being that way around, than those like you who prefer click to open a new tab are in convenience by it actually being that way around as things stand.
I strongly suspect that it's not a very feasible change anyway, as I don't see any sign of such a configuration option in the phpBB documentation. That means that it would have to be done by a phpBB extension, of which there are far too many for me to tackle the job of looking for a suitable one even if I wanted the change! But the general impression I've had from previous looks at the available extensions is that there's unlikely to be one - and indeed, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it wasn't possible to do it by an extension. It would in any case need someone quite familiar with phpBB extensions to do the job, and I can think of many other jobs I'd like such a person to do first, such as finding a way to streamline common moderator tasks... And because of my preference, I would strongly prefer the extension to be one that allows users a per-user configuration option to choose either the current behaviour or open-in-new-tab behaviour - that would be handling the issue
properly!
One last point is that you ask earlier in the thread "
Apart from anything else, why would TLF want to actively send users away, surely we want to keep people here?" My answer to that is that we need to consider all ways of sending users away - and when I do that with regard to myself, I find that a very good way for a site to drive me away is to let its own interests ride roughshod over mine. Its own interests will be dominant as far as the site is concerned, of course, but if its own interests include keeping me as a user, it needs to respect my interests... Basically, trying too hard to keep me on the site will result in me leaving permanently. And it's noticeable that few of the sites I use regularly use open-a-new-tab style links: not a conscious decision on my part, but they grate enough on me that it probably does enter into my "do I like this site enough to use it again?" decisions...
Gengulphus
