The deprecated target attribute and jQuery

It's usually not considered polite to open new windows whenever somebody clicks one of your external links. Those back and forward buttons are there for a reason, so I strongly encourage people to avoid opening new windows.

But, we all know customers. They get this "but I want this" look the second they discover that users may leave their web site too early (can't say how much this attitude sucks..).

One popular way to do this is to use jQuery to open all external links on your page in a popup (making code that obviously violates the "don't open new windows" rule still validate).

$(document).ready(function() {
    $("a[rel='external']").click(function(event) {
        window.open($(this).attr("href"));
        event.preventDefault();
    });
});

Now all you have to do is, add a rel="external" attribute to all outgoing links, and this little jQuery function will take care of making them popup.

Still, this is bad. It contradicts the whole idea why they removed the target attribute in the first place, so consider this as a quick'n'dirty hack to satisfy stupid customers.