[Mediawiki-l] Re: Two URL q's. Link to files and directories, and target = blank for new browser window

Wed Jun 8 18:55:29 UTC 2005

Brion Vibber <brion at ...> writes:

> 
> Mark Lilly wrote:
> > 1. i am working on an internal intranet, and we have lots of directories on
> > networked servers. I would like to link to these via a URL so users can get 
to
> > them. In HTML, it would be:
> > file://pathToServer\pathToDir
> 
> See the FAQ for info on this:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_FAQ

got it. thanks.

> > 2. for some of my external links, i want to open a new browser. In HTML:
> > <a href="example.com" target="_blank">Click Here</a>
> 
> There's no support for this unless you hack it in. We hate it. :D

OK, here's a hack; i changed the makeExternalLink() function in Skin.php and it 
seems to work fine; here it is in case anyone wants it. I added the keyword 
_BLANK to my world. That anywhere after the URL in an external link, and voila, 
target="_BLANK" and the link opens in a new browser window. tested on IE6. 
should work everywhere.

thx,
mark

function makeExternalLink( $url, $text, $escape = true ) {
    $style = $this->getExternalLinkAttributes( $url, $text );
    global $wgNoFollowLinks;
    if( $wgNoFollowLinks ) {
      $style .= ' rel="nofollow"';
    }
    $url = htmlspecialchars( $url );

    //check for _BLANK keyword
    $blank = '_BLANK';
    $posBlank = strpos($text, $blank);

    //replace _BLANK with '' if found
    if ($posBlank !== false) {
      $text = str_replace($blank, '', $text);
    }   

    if( $escape ) {
      $text = htmlspecialchars( $text );
    }

    //if _BLANK, add the target attribute
    if ($posBlank !== false) {
      return '<a href="'.$url.'"'.$style.' target="'.$blank.'">'.$text.'</a>';
    } else {
      return '<a href="'.$url.'"'.$style.'>'.$text.'</a>';    
    }
}