Make "Open in new page" the Default Selection When Inserting a Link

[FireFist-Redhawk]

Maybe this is just me, but I feel like it makes 1000x more sense in a forum environment to have links open in a new page by default rather than the current page. Granted it's not like I'm making multiple links a day on the forums, but it is the first thing I change when making one, and I will even go back and edit posts where I forgot to change it. Curious to see if anyone else feels the same.

My gut feeling is that there wasn't any discussion about this default value, it just happens to be "Open in current page" because that text comes first alphabetically.

[markwni]

@FireFist-Redhawk ,

Thank you for the feedback. I would be interested to hear from others on this. There are certainly pros and cons to forcing that behavior.

Best,

Mark

[crossrulz]

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@FireFist-Redhawk wrote:

Maybe this is just me, but I feel like it makes 1000x more sense in a forum environment to have links open in a new page by default rather than the current page.

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I agree.  I often need to flip back and forth between the linked page and the thread.  Opening in a new page by default is by far the simplest way to do this.

[FireFist-Redhawk]

I pretty much just Ctrl+Click every link nowadays.

Probably different enough to warrant a separate discussion, but I would also suggest having a little "external link indicator" next to links that open in new pages. Then we, the link clickers, will know before clicking how it is going to open. Currently there isn't any way to tell. And so I just Ctrl+Click no matter what.

Spoiler

[Hooovahh]

I'm a middle click kind of guy.  Middle click the links open them in a new tab, then I can middle click the tab up top to close them.  I'm not sure what the default mode is because I never left click a link.  So I'd vote open in new tab.

[altenbach]

Alternatively, we could just go back 6 years and see if we learned something. 😄

(At least this comment should be reevaluated 😉 )

[FireFist-Redhawk]

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@altenbach wrote:

Alternatively, we could just go back 6 years and see if we learned something. 😄

(At least this comment should be reevaluated 😉 )

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Oof lol. I got beat to the punch by altenbach, what a surprise there 🤣

I meaann, Lili makes a pretty solid point I guess. But general UX best practices don't apply the same in all UX circumstances. Just as opening in a new page is better for long forms, I believe that it would be better by default in forums as well. But if what RavensFan said is true, then someone did have a discussion about this and decided to change it. 

Definitely like your other idea as well.