Links posted in topics

[Mattheus]

Tried search but to no avail.
Its of rather small importance yeah - but it's been annoying me. In the old forums, when you clicked a link posted in a topic it would automatically open up in a new window/tab. In the new swanky update it doesn't. It opens in the same window. This irritates me. I'm pretty sure this will be easy to fix?
Oh and for all the middle-clicking naysayers, feck off. Just because something is easy to do it doesn't mean it can't be improved upon.

[Azzer]

I think that's intended as a more "proper" standard for sites tbh.... although there's a split that could argue either way, I think I (amongst many) would sway towards thinking all links really should open in the same tab - because that's what following links usually does. And then if somebody decides they actually want to open a link in a new window/new tab - they click as necessary (shift click, ctrl-click, middle click, right click and select "open link in new...", mouse gestures, or however else they control their browsers). This ensures users always decide what they do too (if a link is forcing itself to open in a new tab, there's no common way to force it to open in the same tab - so you actually limit user decisions a bit).

The opposing argument is all links on a website should open in the same tab unless directing to another website...

I think either argument is sound myself, but as tabbed browsing becomes more common and people get used to middle-clicking as much as left-clicking, I'd be more inclined towards always leaving it up to the user how to manage their links...