saoi_jp - 2:05 am on Jan 16, 2003 (gmt 0)

I agree with the others who say do not open new windows, unless absolutely necessary. I've got two reasons.

The first is from the perspective of a user. I always right-click, open in new window, if I want to stay on the original page. I can do that myself. (Which by the way is why I do not stay on sites that disable right-click.) Novice users may be clueless about controlling where the page opens (especially Mac users, since it's not intuitive to click and hold, which is like right-click), but you could teach them.

The second reason: if someone has already clicked your link to the new window, and then clicks another of your links, the new page will open in the same window as the first one. It won't be ovious at all. I've tried ways around this, and one way is to add extra text onto the target, such as

target="_blank3"

but I haven't tested it extensively, and gut instinct says that this will fail in a number of browsers.

Edited to separate paragraphs