Come on guys. It can’t be that hard can it?

Or right click…..

Very easy: just middle click OR hold control and click OR right click and choose Open Link In New Tab

Is it as easy as putting topics in say the chat forum for non related bike topics and maybe the bike forum for those that are?

My point would be that when a link to an external site is clicked, it takes the viewer away from the site, or does that help unique visitor stats when navigating back here?

Clearly I know very little about such stuff 🙂

Is it as easy as putting topics in say the chat forum for non related bike topics and maybe the bike forum for those that are?

Sounds like you went to the beach and got sand in your vagina. The guy is only just getting to grips with tabs…give him a break.

I know how to open a link in a new tab, thanks.

I also know that most other forums, nay most of websites, do this as a matter of course, not really that bothered to be honest, just makes a site more usable in my opinion.

Thanks very much for your thoughts though. Especially Rob Hilton, a clearly splendid type.

just makes a site more usable in my opinion.

And less so in my opinion. I prefer to be able to choose how I open a link myself, rather than have it dictated to me.
(Which is precisely why w3c tried to deprecate it in HTML4/XHTML)

This guy covers it: http://www.thatwebguyblog.com/post/dont_use_target_blank/

i’m guessing he doesn’t have a middle button 🙂

I prefer to be able to choose how I open a link myself, rather than have it dictated to me.

Exactly. This way you have a choice.

If a link opens in the same window / tab, you have the option of easily forcing it into a new one by holding Ctrl (or any of the other methods above). Or sometimes I just open it in the same tab and use Backspace to go back where I came from when I’ve read it.

If it spawns a new window / tab, there’s no way I’m aware of of overriding this behaviour so you’re stuck with it.

There’s one site in particular that does this and it’s really irritating; I can’t immediately remember the site but it carries articles like “top ten movie villans” and such. At the end of the article it lists a few random other “recommended” articles. I’ll perhaps ctrl-click on three I’d like to read. Then I go to those tabs and each one says ‘click here to read the article’ and spawn a new tab, meaning I end up with seven tabs open, half of which are useless.

i’m guessing he doesn’t have a middle button

Mac user probably 😉
Won’t have a right button either.

Would be useful if things were consistent. This is the only site I have to worry about manually choosing how I open a link. Maybe this one forces same tab, and my browser choice decides for everything else that don’t dictate? Dunno.

Never seen a “open link in new tab” thread on here before 😉

Mac user probably
Won’t have a right button either.

Thank the goodness for gestures, no need for all these buttons.

Thanks for the feedback.

I think the user should have the choice of how they open links. I often Cmd + Click (mac) to open links in new tabs for reading later. Other times I just want a one way ticket. Older mobiles often have tab limits that make opening new tabs a bad idea. Macs also have nice “gestures” for going back that aren’t available when opening new tabs/windows.

So I don’t have any plans to force open in new tab on users.

Mac user probably
Won’t have a right button either.

I’m a Mac user and the magic mouse and track pad on my Mac Pro have a right button…

Aside from that, I agree that this site performs just right, click on it and it should open in the same window, context click and use the option for new tabs.

TFFT!

But could we please have a “Open thread at first unread post” option??

But could we please have a “Open thread at first unread post” option??

Yes please!

But could we please have a “Open thread at first unread post” option??

Under freshness click the time.

Edit: Sorry do you last unread post for the individual not the last post made?

That takes you to last post, not last unread post…

Sorry for my late return to this.
scotroutes – Are you asking that we record every post you read so that we can tell you when there are posts that you haven’t read?

Not sure I would want to do that or that our users would appreciate it.

Have I got the wrong end of the stick?

scotroutes – Are you asking that we record every post you read so that we can tell you when there are posts that you haven’t read?

Not sure I would want to do that or that our users would appreciate it.

Have I got the wrong end of the stick?

That sounds about right, lots of other forums have this feature. Along with “mark all read” etc.

(Oh, and I like the current open-in-same-window behaviour).

Yup, I agree with the OP. This is one of the few sites I visit regularly that opens links in the same window. Major faff, and I wish it was the other way around.

Good grief, stop moaning over minutae.
Right click “open in new tab” or ctrl click or middle click.
I suspect patrick etc have better things to do than save lazy members who pay nothing towards the forum an extra mouse click.

Middle click???

Open links in new tab

no no no no

I want to decide myself what tabs open thanks

middle button

Middle click???

I’m aware of how to get it to work (right click, control click etc), but it’s mildly annoying and I’d prefer it if it did it automatically.

Mildly annoying as in I’ll comment on a thread, but wouldn’t go as far as to start my own about it 🙂

Major faff…

[quote]Mildly annoying[/quote]

Make up your mind! 😀

Personally I’d find it much, much more annoying if the site forced links to open in new tabs/windows rather than letting me decide for myself like a grown up.

Are you asking that we record every post you read so that we can tell you when there are posts that you haven’t read?

Would be nice – but I can see there would be some overhead involved.
The thing is that there is currently no easy way for us to see if new posts have been made on a thread we have been reading or contributing to – other than just keeping an eye out for threads popping to the top of the forum or memorising the last post date/time of every thread we are interested in and spotting when they change!
(seem to remember the bad old forum did something via cookies to have a “new posts” badge on threads but it sucked badly!)

That sounds about right, lots of other forums have this feature. Along with “mark all read” etc.

The old forum used to mark new threads. Perhaps that’s what killed the hamsters so much?

The thing is that there is currently no easy way for us to see if new posts have been made on a thread we have been reading or contributing to – other than just keeping an eye out for threads popping to the top of the forum

The drop down menu on your username provides forum activity for posts you’ve replied to.

Yes, logging users views took a lot of hamsters. The feed bills were astronomical and the wheel was still turning too slowly.

Yes, logging users views took a lot of hamsters. The feed bills were astronomical and the wheel was still turning too slowly.

Upgrade to larger rodents? Guinea Pigs might do the trick.

We are planning an upgrade to capybara. We are just building the pens at the moment.

As others have said, I also do not want to be forced to open links in new tabs.

I’m also not too fussed about being notified of new posts on threads I’ve participated in. My memory isn’t that shot…. Yet. Actually, for threads I’ve participated in, I generally have them in their own tab anyway – middle click – I just go back to the tab after a while and refresh. The window stays at the last read position and new posts are listed underneath.

The only thing I would like to change is to have a link at the bottom of each thread to take me back to the forum. Not a biggie when on my PC, but a minor irritant on my phone/tablet.

The drop down menu on your username provides forum activity for posts you’ve replied to.

Yep – that’s what I use BUT it is very easy to miss stuff that way.

e.g. if I look there now I can see that the “Most Recent” activity on the ”112 vs 999″ thread was 1 day ago.

But I have no way of knowing if that is just the posts made yesterday which I have already read, or if further posts were made yesterday which I haven’t read yet. See?

And it is no use at all if I haven’t actually contributed to a thread, but find it interesting and would want to read more posts on it.

In theory this is solved by using “Favourites” to get an RSS feed – but I never bother with that as it is a total faff.

We are planning an upgrade to capybara. We are just building the pens at the moment.

Imagines…

Life is soooo hard these days. So grateful I dont have a job to do whilst using up STWs bandwidth. 🙄

The frustrating thing is, I can link you to this nice little Greasemonkey script that will open links in new tabs, but if you’re too lazy to Ctrl+Click, Right Click New Tab, Middle Click, tap and hoooold, arcane Apple things, you’re probably too lazy to figure out how to use this script and would much rather the admins here bend to your will.

If you have Chrome, googling: “Tampermonkey Open Links New tab” will probably see you right.

Or even the SingletrackWorld-specific script:
https://userscripts.org/scripts/show/72249