MLA_Target tag not working

Thanks for your question and for posting the link to an example page; very helpful.

I had a look at your page and examined the HTML source text. Here is an example of the links to your documents:

<a class="fusion-no-lightbox" href="https://churchofresurrection.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/April-3-2016.pdf" data-title="April 3, 2016" data-caption="" data-rel="iLightbox[postimages]">April 3, 2016</a>

The Avada theme is modifying the links in the gallery and removing attributes like target=_blank generated by MLA. The Avada theme has come up in several earlier topics:

Conflict with Avada

mla_link_attributes

PDF linking

There is nothing MLA can do to prevent or correct the link modifications Avada is doing after MLA completes the gallery generation. You will have to work with the theme vendor to find a solution for your application.

I am marking this topic resolved because MLA is working properly. If you do find a solution please post an update here so other Avada users can benefit from your experience. Thanks for your interest in the plugin.

Thanks David,

Ryan at Themefusion did some testing over the past few days and has come up with a reason why Avada theme strips the target tag, and a possible workaround…

Ahh, I’ve found the conflict. The issue is that Avada is applying the lightbox markup to these links, which by nature doesn’t use the target attribute (Since it has to open in the same window). The issue is going to be resolving this without affecting the other elements on the page.

Avada is built to enable lightbox on all of the images inside the post content and since this particular plugin is acting as a gallery, the links are interpreted as image links. You can resolve the issue by disabling Avada’s lightbox via your Theme Options -> Lightbox. However, this will turn the lightbox functionality off for the rest of your website.

The particular plugin that you’re using isn’t one that has been tested by our team, so I can’t guarantee that it will be compatible with Avada. However, I will create an item on our developers list to see if we can remove the lightbox functionality for links that are not images. I can see there being issues introducing this, as some customers may be using the lightbox to load other types of content, such as HTML files.

Thanks for your update and for posting Ryan’s comments. Here are a couple of thoughts you can pass along to him:

• Ryan wrote “since this particular plugin is acting as a gallery…” In fact, MLA is not acting as a gallery; it is simply preparing an ids= parameter list and passing the list to the standard WordPress [gallery] shortcode. Avada is interacting with [gallery] output.
• All of the other lightbox plugins I have worked with include a parameter of their own, such as rel=nolightbox to disable link modification on a gallery-by-gallery basis without affecting other elements on the page. Perhaps Avada can implement something similar to avoid the site-wide “turn the lightbox functionality off” problem Ryan mentions.

If there is anything I can do to help, let me know. Good luck with your application.

Hi David

I’ll write here instead of creating a duplicate topic…I’m having the same issue. mla_target=”_blank” is simply being ignored, and not sure why. I tried it with the Fusion theme installed, and also with WP 2016.

See here: https://cboq2016.wpengine.com/churches/life/resources/

The list to the left, only has 2 PDFs, and the list will be only PDFs. Shortcode I’m using:

[mla_gallery attachment_category=’life’ post_parent=’all’ post_mime_type=’application/pdf’ link=’file’ orderby=’date DESC’?mla_target=”_blank”]

Let me know if you are able to help me, thanks! Otherwise this is a super great plugin!

I can reopen this a new topic if needed.

@adrockmk2,

Thanks for your post, for adding the shortcode and link and for your patience while I was on the road.

The page you linked to looks like it has been changed since your post; it now has a long list of documents. I could not get it to load in Internet Explorer, and it gives four error messages in Chrome. Three of them are “404 (Not Found)” errors from e.issuu.com function embed.js and one of them is “Google Maps API warning: NoApiKeys”. There is also an “Error loading data” displayed under the “2015-2016 Resource Guide” heading.

I don’t recognize the HTML markup for the document list; it doesn’t match the markup generated by [mla_galley]. Is it possible that some other plugin or theme function is altering the links?

Thanks for any additional information you can provide.

Ah yes, one of the other admins must be changing things around. I will create a new test. Thank you for the reply.

I have removed the issuu embed that was causing the errors. The list is still there they have just categorized a lot more items.

https://cboq2016.wpengine.com/churches/life/resources/

The long list on the left, it has mla_target=”_blank” in the shortcode, but as you can see its not going to a new window. I have also tried this without plugins and the twenty sixteen theme.

Thank you for looking at this!

Thanks for your update; I gave the link another try.

The page still does not render at all in Internet Explorer. It gets “premature end of file”.

In Firefox the page renders, but the HTML markup for the document list looks the same to me. I don’t know what a “wpb-media-list” is, but I do not believe it was generated by [mla_gallery].

Can you tell me what theme you are using and if you are using a plugin of some sort to build the page layouts?

is the problem fixed? My files are manuals, i would really like them to open in a new window or tab. i’m also using Avada for my theme.

@augustynen,

I have not seen anything further on this topic and I haven’t verified any MLA issues associated with it. If you are having a problem with target=_blank in your application, it would be best to open a new support topic and post any details you have so I can give you more specific help. Thanks!