Service status link

If there is any way to modify the html code, can the "Service status: ..." message be linked to open a new page?
I don't really care to see a "you are leaving this web site and going to another one message confirmation or the like". But I prefer not to see that other site ("letsencrypt.status.io") replace my connection to "community.letsencrypt.org" when clicking the "Service status: ..." message link.

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Perhaps by adding:

target = "_blank"

to the link (<a> tag)?

I can't submit a PR for the community website. :slightly_frowning_face:

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Done, hopefully it will render correctly on the next update.

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I believe this kind of behaviour (asked & implemented) is actually against current (or at least, back in "my days") views of user interface design. It's the users choice to open a link in a new window/tab, not the website developers!

You can easily open links in new tabs/windows by holding down Ctrl resp. Shift when clicking.

I see this is heavily debated in UX realms: web design open link in new window - Google Search

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Personally, I've always thought that links to external websites (located on different TLDs) should open in new tabs. It makes for a far cleaner browsing experience and mitigates certain types of attacks that revolve around manipulation of browsing history. It serves as a type of encapsulation if you will. I certainly understand the choice versus no choice argument though. In my experience, I've just always found it more efficient to just close the new tab than to go back in the current tab and deal with whatever reload mess might be caused in the process. This is especially true when the link in question is to a PDF file or some resource that opens in an external app. Replacing the current browsing context with a blank window only to need to go back to return to anything useful isn't at all useful.

Maybe thinking of the browsing context as a historical timeline in a book or other media might make sense. Referencing another book shouldn't glue that book into the one you're currently reading.

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I think I'm with the open in new tab crowd. Many times when I am on a news media site to read an article, I'll see 2 article in the side bar that I want to read also. But when I click on the link and the new article loads, the articles that were in the side bar is sometimes replaced with different ones. Pressing back will bring me to the original article, but a completely different set of articles appears in the side bar.

An alternative would just be to right-click on the link and click "Open in new tab" which I usually end up doing.

Here's one site that I really do like how they have set up. Click on any link in the side bar and it opens in a new tab. What's nice is that you don't have to close that tab, but click back on the 1st tab, click another link and that opens in the 2nd tab that's already open and brings that into focus. You can repeat this for as many times as you want. Back on the 2nd tab, the back button will take you through all the links that had been opened in it.

Of course it's US military., the Joint Typhoon Warning Center. :laughing:

https://www.metoc.navy.mil/jtwc/jtwc.html?tropical

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I'm very much with Osiris here. If I want a link opened in the same tab I left-click it, and if I want it opened in a new tab I middle-click it. It always frustrates me when web sites assume they know better than I do about what I just told them to do.

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Considering that I do 99% of everything on the web from my phone (and "mobile first" is a design mantra for that very reason), I really don't like holding on links (especially "smart/scripted links") to try to open them in a new tab. It's a usability nightmare. With scripted links, it doesn't even work.

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