Sononaco: The Blog

As you may not know, adding target=”_blank” to an “a” tag breaks the validation.

I wrote a few years ago about how to use MooTools to generate w3c valid XHTML while still opening links in new windows.  Since MooTools decided to make their documentation difficult to comprehend and reduced their examples to nearly nothing we decided to move to jQuery.  Fight about which one is better elsewhere.

Here is how to use jQuery to open your links in a new window or target but still pass w3c validation.

All you need to do is add a class to your links, such as:

<a href=”http://www.sononaco.com” class=”new_window”>Sononaco.com</a>

Then in your ready() function:

	if($('a.new_window').length > 0)
	{
		$('a.new_window').each(function(){
			$(this).click(function(e){
				e.preventDefault();
				window.open($(this).attr('href'), '_blank');
			});
		});
	}

Enjoy being valid.