[wp-hackers] Use of _blank in wp-admin

[Mahmoud Al-Qudsi]

> While we're talking about it, I also dislike the usage of
> target="_blank" in the admin. Not because it is deprecated, but because
> of the reason *why* it is deprecated: Users should be able to decide
> themselves whether they want a link to open in the same or another
> tab/window. And with current UAs, this is no problem: You don't even
> have to select "Open in new tab/window" from the menu, but it is
> usually
> sufficient to click the link with the mouse wheel to open it in a new
> tab.

Well put, Alex. I just want to re-iterate that this is the beauty of using valid HTML <a> markup on a modern browser.
Shift+Click == New window.
Ctrl+Click == New tab, w/ focus (latter part depends on browser)
Middle-Click == New tab
etc....

There is no need for it to be hard-coded except in some rare circumstances (i.e. a form with a submit button that needs to open the result in a new tab/window, etc. - and even then, some browsers like Opera have shift+click support for that, too).

As Alex says, the hard-coding of the destination of a link is a real workflow-killer. Currently I just middle-click /all/ links (as Alex says, you don't know where it's going to open) then ctrl+w the current one :-(

-MQ