Tuesday, 27 August 2013

Standard for hyperlink appearance, based on type?

Standard for hyperlink appearance, based on type?

This is my first question here, so please be gentle...
It seems that a user often has to make a decision about whether to
directly click on a hyperlink, or do a ctrl-click (click to open in new
window or tab), and that he/she would benefit by knowing some things about
the link before clicking. Specifically:
is this link to an anchor on the same page, or to a different page?
Is this link already set to open a new window/tab (target="_blank") with a
normal click?
Is this link to a script, so that ctrl-click will do nothing but produce a
blank window/tab?
I suppose there are some other choices as well (I won't touch on frames
here), but the point is that users are often up in the air about whether
they want to click or ctrl-click a link. Has there ever been talk of
having a standard in this regard? That is, perhaps have one color (blue)
for "traditional" links (external links with target="_self"), one for
same-page links, and one for links (scripted) in which ctrl-click is not
an option?

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