Open link in new window with Jquery

Question

I am trying to open a few links in a new window using Jquery rather than _blank so my html remains valid. My code looks like this:

$(document).ready(function() {
    $('a[id="external-url"]').click(function(){
        $(this).attr('target','_blank');
    });
});

This works just fine except when the link is contained within html I have placed on the page using the Jquery load() method. Can anyone explain why and please help with a solution?

Answer 1

Update: If you're reading this in an HTML5+ world the target attribute is no longer deprecated (no longer missing, to be more accurate) as it was in XHTML 1.0 (the original question context). I suggest if you're reading this now, ignore everything below, use the target attribute whether it throws a compliance warning or not, all browsers support it and it never should have been left out...the fact it was added back in a later spec shows removing it was a mistake.

---

This will work:

$('a#external-url').live('click', function(){
  $(this).attr('target','_blank');
});

However, IDs should be unique, if you're loading more than 1, they need to have a class instead, like this:

<a href="http://google.com" class="exteral-url">Google</a>

And jQuery like this:

$('a.external-url').live('click', function(){
  $(this).attr('target','_blank');
});

The standards compliant way would be:

$('a.external-url').live('click', function(e){
  window.open(this.href);
  e.preventDefault(); //or return false;
});

Answer 2

$(function(){
    $('a[id="external-url"]').click(function(){
        window.open(this.href);
        return false;
    });
});

http://snipplr.com/view/4626/jquery-snip--open-link-in-new-window/

Answer 3

Use .live()

$('a[id="external-url"]').live("click", function(){
        $(this).attr('target','_blank');
    });

Your code will bind click event to elements that are available at the page load and not to dynamically created elements. Live will bind events to elements that are dynamically created also.

Answer 4

On the contrary what others believe, the target attribute with all its values are not deprecated as per HTML5 specification.

You can read it about here: http://dev.w3.org/html5/markup/a.html

The target attribute on the a element was deprecated in a previous version of HTML, but is no longer deprecated, as it useful in Web applications, particularly in combination with the iframe element.

So, feel free to use it in HTML5.