When it comes to site optimization, there's always lots to do. Richard Florance has a great post on making ASP.NET sites run more efficiently. One thing that Richard doesn't talk about is on the client-side, specifically using jQuery (or JavaScript) to add repetitive, non-critical, page elements and attributes. Here's a quick tip that you can use to reduce a page's size: Add target="_blank" to <a> tags using jQuery.
$("a").filter(function () {
return this.hostname && this.hostname !== location.hostname;
}).each(function () {
$(this).attr({
target: "_blank",
title: "Visit " + this.href + " (click to open in a new window)"
});
});
The above code filters all the hyperlink tags by hostname, and then adds a target="_blank" as well as a title attribute to each external link. If you don't like the title attribute, change or remove it. You could also take this one step further and add a css class or image/styling directly to each external link to identify them as external (although you could accomplish this using straight css, too); I'll leave this to you.
Of course, to implment this, you'll likely want to add this jQuery code snippet to your global $(document).ready function, and you'll need to referrence the jQuery library in your HTML. If you're new to jQuery, check out this tutorial to get you started.
The nice thing about this approach is that the snippet can be added to an existing site in a matter of minutes. Obviously, you don't want to use this method to add mission critical elements/attributes to your site, unless you can ensure that every user will have JavaScript enabled.
Happy External Linking,
James Fielding
Sciosoft Systems is a Canadian web design & development company based in Muskoka,
which is in central Ontario. We provide ASP.NET website & Windows Server application
development services to small and medium-sized business, as well as local government
and not-for-profit groups. If you have a website project you’d like to discuss,
please visit us at www.sciosoft.com.
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