Open links to other collective pages without popup

[arnowelzel]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
When I clink a link to another collective page in "view" mode, the page is not opened. Instead a popup opens with some information about this page and a "copy" icon. To open the page, you have to click the "info" box below. This is quite confusing as you don't really understand why the link does not just bring you to the linked page and what to do.

Describe the solution you'd like
Leave links as they are and let the browser decide what to do. When clicking/tapping it, it will open the linked page, but people can also use their right mouse button or tap and hold it to open the context menu of the browser to choose what to do with it.

Describe alternatives you've considered
Make the behaviour configurable as global administrative setting.

Additional context
Changing the behaviour of well known elements like links is bad for usability. People know what a "link" is: when a text is underlined and usually colored you can click or tap on it will open. This is how links work almost everywhere. There are also other well known patterns: clicking while holding [Ctrl] or [Cmd] will open the link in a new tab. Right-clicking it or tap and hold will open a context menu where you can decide what to do with the link - like copy it, open it in a new tab etc..

By inventing a new behaviour like "open a popup when you click a link" you force people to learn this new behaviour. It is at least confusing but may also be a real problem since the new popup even does not contain any clear indication where to click to open the linked page eventually.

One exception is when editing documents, where you may want to be able to edit the link as well and not just open it. That's the reason why there are popups in editors so one can choose what to do. But when viewing documents, the behaviour of links should not be changed without a very good reason.

[arnowelzel]

Also see #1226

[mejo-]

Thanks for your report @arnowelzel.

Leave links as they are and let the browser decide what to do. When clicking/tapping it, it will open the linked page, but people can also use their right mouse button or tap and hold it to open the context menu of the browser to choose what to do with it.

That's how it should be at the moment. You can still right-click on the link and select "Open link in new tab", also Ctrl-Click and (on Linux) middle click will open the link in a new tab straight away.

One exception is when editing documents, where you may want to be able to edit the link as well and not just open it.

Exactly that's the reason why we invented the link bubble (you were suggesting it yourself 😉). And for consistency reasons we decided to make it behave the same way in edit and view mode. Otherwise people will be confused why clicking on a link behaves different in the different modes.

[arnowelzel]

Thanks for your report @arnowelzel.

Leave links as they are and let the browser decide what to do. When clicking/tapping it, it will open the linked page, but people can also use their right mouse button or tap and hold it to open the context menu of the browser to choose what to do with it.

That's how it should be at the moment. You can still right-click on the link and select "Open link in new tab", also Ctrl-Click and (on Linux) middle click will open the link in a new tab straight away.

On a mobile device it's no that easy to do "right-click". Not many people are aware of the context menu gesture of their mobile browsers and some browsers don't even support hat. And "right-click" is also not very self-explanatory for people who use a trackpad on a laptop or macOS devices.

One exception is when editing documents, where you may want to be able to edit the link as well and not just open it.

Exactly that's the reason why we invented the link bubble (you were suggesting it yourself 😉). And for consistency reasons we decided to make it behave the same way in edit and view mode. Otherwise people will be confused why clicking on a link behaves different in the different modes.

In #845 I suggested the link bubble for edit mode, not for view mode. For view mode (as in the PDF viewer) it makes no sense at all to open a bubble first when clicking the link. There is no need to do anything else besides letting the browser decide what to do with it. When people want just to copy the link instead of opening it, they can use the context menu of their device.

My preferred solution:

View mode: do not open the bubble at all, leave the link handling of the browser as it is.

Edit mode: make the link inside the bubble also clickable as link with target="_blank" as attribute. This way nobody will accidentally close the current document one is working on, but you still can open the link easily.

Alternative:

If opening a bubble can not be avoided, make the link inside the bubble also clickable as link with target="_blank" as attribute.

[sen4git]

I fully agree with @arnowelzel

View mode: do not open the bubble at all, leave the link handling of the browser as it is.

Please - if possible - make it possible to keep it simple, as it was.

@mejo- Thanks for your work!