Open in New Window “target=”_blank

Hi Dennis,
First thanks for using the plugin.

As for the mailto functionality. By default a mailto link on a web page will automatically launch your computer’s default email client as a new mail message. (unless you have configured it not to do so)

Example: If you use outlook it should launch outlook with a new message window with the email address auto filled with the mailto link. This new window is actually from your email software on your computer.

With that being said, what exact functionality are you looking for?

Hi Webbernaut, my apology for slow reply, been away.

Re yr query “what exact functionality are you looking for”….see here, I have a test website for a local Art Society: Millhouse Art Society

Now in the above link I just provided you, to my test site, I have it set as: target=”_blank” so when you click to follow my link, it will open in new browser tab. That’s exactly what I’d like to be able to do with your script.

You can notice on my test website above, if you navigate to “Contact” and then take the ‘mailto’ option: [email protected]…..it will not open in a new tab.

It’s behaving as it should. My email client (Mac mail in my case) pops up with the email in the “email to” field when I click on your test server email link. I don’t think your issue is the code from the website but more so your computer configuration. Do you have a mail client installed on your computer (Outlook, Thunderbird or other)? If not, then mailto: will not work, the mailto: is looking to open an application on your computer. If there is no default email application configured, someone would need to copy and paste the email into their webmail.

The mailto: function is tied to opening an email client(software). Just as the tel: function is tied to calling a number (mobile or maybe skype).

target=”_blank” opens a new tab for whatever the link is. So in this case you will get blank page that has the “url” as mailto:[email protected] which isn’t useful at all.

You can see what I mean here:
https://jsfiddle.net/d2gm1t0o/

Thanks for the reply, sorry we seem to have confusion.
I am not saying your shortcode does not work.

I am using Chrome & Gmail.

If I click the shortcode [email name=”cfe-millhouse_art”] it does not open a NEW Browser Tab….simply refreshes the current tab to my GMail client.

Hence my concern is a website visitor is taken away from the website page, to complete an email. I just don’t like losing a guest off my websites if I can avoid it. Thus I’m suggesting a ‘_target blank’ option to ensure when a user of a mail client like GMail clicks the shortcode it opens a new tab, not the current browser tab where the website is being viewed.

Cheers Dennis

By design the mailto code is meant to open your email client to send an email. Adding _target_blank isn’t going to change it’s behavior. (and in fact will just open a blank tab that navigates away from your site) If you are referring to a mobile device it might have a slightly different behavior but it will still open an email application and bring that application to the “front”.

If you don’t want people navigating away from your website (to an email client) when sending a message I would suggest using an email form. The email gets sent from the back end and the user never leaves your website.

Cheers and thanks. Rgds Dennis