Opening external links in new tabs with Javascript

opening-external-links-in-new-tabs.md

Opening External Links in New Tabs with Javascript

Here's the snippet of HTML that can be used to call this file:

<script src="/js/opening-external-links-in-new-tabs.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

And here's the JS file opening-external-links-in-new-tabs.js:

var links = document.getElementsByTagName("a");

for (counter = 0; counter < links.length; counter++) {
  var link = links[counter];

  if (link.target == "_self") {
    link.getAttribute("href") && link.hostname !== location.hostname && (link.target = "_self");
  } else {
    link.getAttribute("href") && link.hostname !== location.hostname && (link.target = "_blank");
  };
};

Notes

To open an EXTERNAL link in the CURRENT tab, write a link like this:

<a href="https://github.com" target="_self">GitHub</a>

To open an INTERNAL link in a NEW tab, write a link like this:

<a href="https://example.com" target="_blank">My website</a>