Why links should always open in a new tab (and how to do it)

For PC (and laptop!) users, RSI is a real risk. For cellphone and tablet users, there is a "texting thumb" to worry about. This means it is our duty, as web developers, to reduce the number of clicks or thumb movements required to navigate a website.

If you do not make your links open in a new tab, it is doubling, at least, the amount of action required by the user and should not be considered by any serious programmer. There is, luckily, a simple method from which to get a link to open in a new tab with a single click.

I am releasing this method, in full, at this link https://pastebin.com/68YzV3Bk

just use middle mouse button, anus

>>2
Step one: Click link with middle mouse button to open link in new tab
Step two: move mouse over to click on the tab.
TWO whole clicks for every link you want to access, it adds up faster than you think.

But with a one-click solution there is only one step and one click: Click on the link and have it open in a new tab right in front of your face.

Yes let's handle basic functionality such as link clicking with fucking javashite. What's next? HIBT?

>>4
It reduces the number of mouse clicks by 50%. It reduces the action required on mobile devices by possibly up to 80%. It is simply the best solution, reflexively hating JavaScript is not the correct way to look at this.

Middle-click is set to open in foreground >>3
What kind of setup you have that it opens tabs in background?

It doesn't reduce clicks because you still have additional clicks to close the old tab as well as the new one.

>>6
Default ff on windoze.

>>6
Wow. It's normal to want to open tabs in the background, the most common case involves reading an article with links peppered throughout but wanting to read them later rather than interrupt your reading of the article. In this, extremely common, scenario, you simply middle click to open these links in a background tab. Only a fool, completely unacquainted with statistics, would set middle click to open a foreground tab knowing how common the need for background tab opening actually is. In the, relatively rare, case you want to open a new tab but look at it immediately? That is what the method in OP accomplishes cross-platform.

>>9
In this imaginary autistic scenario, i would instead click link -> check it ->close tab and return back to article. I don't lose context this way, unlike viewing dozens of random tabs after i read the article - i need the context, and i want it now, not in some future where i forget 50% of what i read.

>>9

a fool, completely unacquainted with statistics

Yes I do have experience with the Goo*le Chrome dev team.

>>3
that's what I want though. middle click if I want to add something to backlog (new tab without switching), left click if I want to move somewhere (no new tab). no need for new tab with switching. why would I want a broken win95-style workflow with every fucking click opening a new tab/window?

>>10
it's not imaginary, that's what I do. seems it's also more common than your're are scenario

>>13
You are autistic and imaginary.

>>14
your're are an anus

>>10
It is unfathomably common for articles, or any online content, to link to other content of interest. You claim you cannot enjoy content linked online unless you remember the context of the link itself, yet you fail to account for the fact that any site can, and, most likely, will, link any other site for any, or no, reason at all. Such links to content is what you find yourself opening in new tabs 80% of the time while surfing online. So we see middle click is clearly best to open in a background tab ~80% of the time. For the rest you can recommend the method in OP to the webmasters of your favorite sites. Such as this site, I should think btw.

>>16
I call this tree-style browsing and its not that hard remembering a part of content leading to another site, then backtracking to the root when you read it all.