Links: FrontPage 2000
Open a Link in a New Window

Preview A hyperlink is a direct connection from the current location of the cursor to another location.

Most familiar to web site visitors is the hyperlink that takes them to another place on the web.  For example, when you use a search engine it presents you with a list of hyperlinks to a variety of web sites that might have the information you are looking for.

Such a link is called an absolute hyperlink. The absolute hyperlink goes out to a file external to the current web site.

Because the link goes out to a file external to the current web site, visitors must use the BACK button on the web browser to return to the original site.  If visitors spend much time browsing deeply into the second site or venture even farther out on the web to yet another site, they may not be able to return to your site.
You can solve this problem and ensure your visitors an easy return to your site by creating the hyperlink in such a way as to open an entirely new browser window to accommodate the linked site. 

In that way when your visitors leave the second site by closing the second browser window, they will find themselves back at your site.

Recall the way to create an absolute hyperlink in FrontPage 2000:
  • Highlight the clickable text.
  • Choose the Hyperlink button (the icon of the globe with a link on it) on the Standard toolbar.

Hyperlink button
 Hyperlink button

The Create Hyperlink box will appear. By default the URL will already contain the http:// protocol.

Type in the URL of the web page you wish to hyperlink to.

Create Hyperlink dialog box

To open the hyperlinked page in a new browser window, click on the Change Target Frame button in the lower right corner of the dialog box.

Target Frame Area of Hyperlink dialog box

The Target Frame Dialog Box will appear.

Choose New Window

Change Target Frame button
Change Target Frame button

Target Frame dialog box with New Window highlighted

Notice that the Target setting becomes  _blank.
This is the default setting for a new window.

Click on OK

You will be returned to the Create Hyperlink dialog box. Click on OK again.

Now when a visitor to your site clicks on that hyperlink, the web page will open in a new browser

Example:  Visit my home page.

If you click on the hyperlink above, a new browser window containing my home page will open.  When you close that browser page, you will find yourself back at this page.

If you have more than one hyperlink on a page and you want to open more than one new window, give each new window a distinctive name.

Example:

Visit my home page.  Then visit my course: English 123, Writing for the World Wide Web.

When you click on the first link, the one to my home page, a new browser window will open.  Resize that window, then come back to this page and click on the second link, the one to my course page. A third browser window will open with my course page.

To create these two browser windows, I simply changed the Target Setting in the Target Frame dialog box from _blank to home for the first hyperlink and from _blank to web for the second hyperlink.
You can also specify that every hyperlink on your page will open in the same new window. To do so you add a command to the properties of the entire page. 
  • Choose Format, Background from the main menu.
  • The Page Properties dialog box will appear.
  • Choose the General tab

Page Properties dialog box. General tab

  • Click on the Change Target Frame button in the lower right corner of the first section of the dialog box.
  • The Target Frame Dialog Box will appear.
  • Choose New Window.
  • Click on OK.
  • You will be returned to the Page Properties dialog box. The default target frame will now be _blank.
  • Click on OK to save the new settings.

Change Target Frame button
Change Target Frame button

Links: FrontPage 2000
Overview
Create Absolute Links
Create Relative Links
Create Mailto Links
Create Internal Links
Create a Hyperlink to a New Page

Open a Link in a New Window

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Last Revised: August 22, 2001
© Agatha Taormina