target attribute being broken

[stravanato]

This breaks 'target' attribute of links (a link with target '_blank' will be opened in the same window):

/**
If this link is not opened in a new tab or window, we need to add
a small delay so the event can fully fire. See:
http://support.google.com/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1136920 
* We're actually checking for modifier keys or middle-click
*/
if ( ! ( e.metaKey || e.ctrlKey || 1 == e.button ) ) {
  e.preventDefault();
  setTimeout('document.location = "' + $(this).attr('href') + '"', 100);
}

Is it really necessary to add that delay?

[aaroncampbell]

It definitely was when it was added. The problem was that the way Google was logging events, there was a slight delay because of some pre-processing, and the href part of the link would be followed and you'd leave the page before the javascript to trigger the event actually happened.

The URL linked in the comment used to actually warn of this problem, but now it looks like they've updated their docs to show the proper way to do this with their new Univeral Analytics. It looks like if we use those we can eliminate the need for the delay. I'm not sure about the standard ga.js stuff that's currently being used. I haven't tested it in quite a while.

We could probably change our selector for this from $('a:external') to '$(a:external:not([target]), a:external[target="_self"]') to target only external links that are also targeting the current frame.

[stravanato]

Hi, Aaron, thanks a lot. Firstly I commented those 4 lines but yours is the correct solution. I think you made a typo with the first single quote and it should be: $('a:external:not([target]), a:external[target="_self"]') Again, thank you.

[stravanato]

Hi, Aaron, one more thing you could be interested. I got errors when it tries to match objects that don't have href attribute, so I changed these lines like this:

// Adds :external for grabbing external links
$.expr[':'].external = function(obj) {
  return obj.href ? !obj.href.match(/^mailto\:/) && !obj.href.match(/^javascript\:/) && (obj.hostname != location.hostname) : false;
  // return !obj.href.match(/^mailto\:/) && !obj.href.match(/^javascript\:/) && (obj.hostname != location.hostname);
};

Hope this is useful.