Making links open in a new window

By Lisa on November 10, 2005 10:34 PM | tutorials | Permalink | Comments (2)

Requires MTMacros plugin and some editing (Macro code from Adam Kalsey)...

[Foo. It's leaving behind </MTIfMatches> tags and with the second pattern matching, it thinks all links are from my site so I've removed the second MTIfMatches from my code for now.]

1) Create a Module Template that contains the following code (with your domain name in place of "example.com") (I named mine "link_fixer"):
<MTMacroDefine name="links" ctag="a"> <MTIfMatches expr="[MTMacroAttr name='href']" pattern="m|^http:|"> <MTMacroAttr name="target" value="_blank"> </MTIfMatches> <MTIfMatches expr="[MTMacroAttr name='href']" pattern="m|^http://.*.example.com|"> <MTMacroAttr name="target" value="_top"> </MTIfMatches> <MTMacroTag rebuild="1"><MTMacroContent></a> </MTMacroDefine>

2) Next, add the following line in your Main Index, Date-Based Archives, Category Archives and Individual Entry Archives after the <body> tag:
<$MTInclude module="link_fixer"$>

3) Look in those templates for <$MTEntryBody$> and <$MTEntryMore$>... change them to <$MTEntryBody apply_macros="1"$> and <$MTEntryMore apply_macros="1"$> respectively.

4) Rebuild your site and now external links open in a new window!

If you want to do this for your comments as well, then you'd need to add the apply_macros="1" bit in the <$MTCommentBody$> tag.