[Sigia-l] Usability of launching new browser window?

[Simon Willison]

At 13:41 27/07/2002 -0400, m o r r y wrote:
>Not necessarily so in our experience. We actually saw uses who expected the
>window to open in a new browser and were frustrated so we moved to
>accomodate the prevailing opinion by users. Granted we didn't always see
>this but sometimes we do. It all depends on the users.  We also found that
>many users had no clue about the option click, right mose click etc. on the
>mouse.

I am currently working on an open source links directory script (for 
setting up a Yahoo style link directory on a web site - screenshot here: 
http://scripts.incutio.com/directory/ ) which is facing this problem - on 
the one hand I can't stand links that open in a new window, but on the 
other hand many potential users of the directory prefer them. My planned 
solution is to have the following at the bottom of every page:

Open links in new window? |=| <-- a checkbox, defaulting to unchecked

The checkbox will toggle whether or not links will open in a new window, 
using javascript. The chexkbox and text will be added to the page using 
document.write, to prevent them from showing up in browsers that will not 
support the added functionality (such as lynx or browsers with javascript 
disabled).

Are there any usability or general problems with this solution?

Thanks,

Simon Willison
http://www.bath.ac.uk/~cs1spw/blog/