RE: controlling external links

by "Kali Woodbridge" <kaliajer(at)mail.com>

 Date:  Fri, 27 Oct 2000 13:19:55 -0400
 To:  "'Coops'" <coops(at)bellatlantic.net>,
<hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org>,
<hwg-basics(at)hwg.org>
 In-Reply-To:  bellatlantic
  todo: View Thread, Original
Greetings!

<snip>
...to control how people leave their site. Specifically, when
someone clicks on an external link, they want them to first
go to a page on their site that says something like "you're
about to leave our website, please come again" then, after
some delay (5 seconds or so), the browser would be redirected
to the external link they first chose.
</snip>

There has been some flack from various sources about the increasing
use of popup windows when exiting a page/site. The control issue
thing, you know? I personally find it very annoying. The snippet below
does not produce a full-blown popup window; merely an alert box which
also needs to be clicked to get out of it.

<.body onUnload="alert('Thanks for visiting our site. Come again
soon!')">

If you DO want a popup window, be careful of using a literal time
event to control it. Different connection times, different reading
speeds, etc. need to be considered. A basic open window script can be
found at:
http://www.webcoder.com/scriptorium/index.html

In the HEAD you will need to add something like:
<.META HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" CONTENT="3; URL=index.html">
which means hand coding every one of these buggers, or creating a
variable that takes the URL selected and passing it to the new window.
Do-able, but is it desirable? I would be interested in hearing your
final decision on it.

Good Luck!
kali
kaliajer(at)mail.com
=================
The learning curve is now a spin cycle
--Paul Bicknell

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