Open URL Link in New Tab
-
The 6.5.x release of WordPress continues with a UI edit layout that end users have expressed adds additional manual steps (i.e. mouse clicks) to set an href hyperlink for Open in a New Tab (i.e. target=’_blank’).
The issue has popped up across WordPress forum issues most recently here and here, as this editor functionality was rolled in 6.3.x through 6.4.x and thus I’m staging this for 6.5.x per moderator request.
I think from a high level overview, the small but persistent chorus of end users complaining about this functionality change largely overlooks the fact that they are consumers of free & open source software — this is a persistent problem in OSS communities as the public has a false sense of entitlement in that complaints deserve the attention of unpaid open-source maintainers — @getdave outlines this nicely on a WP guttenberg git issue here.
It is unclear to me how easy it is for WP maintainers to set a site wide configuration through the WP admin backend, that enables this Open in New Tab checkbox for all hyperlinks, that would probably alleviate a huge swath of complaints. I imagine a lot of CMS teams are either all of none for hyperlinks targetting blank into a new tab.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.