Automatically show icon next to all external links

[andrewdavidwong]

Should our website clearly distinguish external links (e.g., the way Wikipedia does)? If so, does anyone know the best way to do that given the way the site is set up?

[adrelanos]

Axon:

Should our website clearly distinguish external links (e.g., the way Wikipedia does)?

Yes.

[adrelanos]

Axon:

Should our website clearly distinguish external links (e.g., the way Wikipedia does)?

Yes.

[andrewdavidwong]

@bnvk, any ideas about how best to do this?

[andrewdavidwong]

@bnvk, any ideas about how best to do this?

[bnvk]

I like this idea a lot. I suggest adding the external-link icon that's in FontAwesome, which we're using!

[bnvk]

I like this idea a lot. I suggest adding the external-link icon that's in FontAwesome, which we're using!

[andrewdavidwong]

Right, but is there any way to make that icon appear automatically next to external links? I think that's the only way it's going to happen in a useful way. I don't think we can rely on anyone marking up their URLs in source to distinguish external links. Even if we tried to, I have a feeling the results would be very inconsistent (lots of links which are actually external but failed to be manually marked-up that way, resulting in many users being misled, which would arguably be worse than not distinguishing links at all).

[andrewdavidwong]

Right, but is there any way to make that icon appear automatically next to external links? I think that's the only way it's going to happen in a useful way. I don't think we can rely on anyone marking up their URLs in source to distinguish external links. Even if we tried to, I have a feeling the results would be very inconsistent (lots of links which are actually external but failed to be manually marked-up that way, resulting in many users being misled, which would arguably be worse than not distinguishing links at all).

[bnvk]

is there any way to make that icon appear automatically next to external links?

Yes, I hear your point about consistency and not requiring people to tag it. This is ideal, for sure. The easiest way would be to use javascript- i'm not sure if that is "OK" with the team, as a lot of security projects are anti JS. A non-JS way might be with some custom Jekyll module written in Ruby or perhaps a flag in the Jekyll interpreter?

[bnvk]

is there any way to make that icon appear automatically next to external links?

Yes, I hear your point about consistency and not requiring people to tag it. This is ideal, for sure. The easiest way would be to use javascript- i'm not sure if that is "OK" with the team, as a lot of security projects are anti JS. A non-JS way might be with some custom Jekyll module written in Ruby or perhaps a flag in the Jekyll interpreter?

[andrewdavidwong]

Yeah, I think a non-JS way would be preferable. Good ideas.

[andrewdavidwong]

Yeah, I think a non-JS way would be preferable. Good ideas.

[Jeeppler]

Was there any progress on this issue till now? Any solution considered?

[Jeeppler]

Was there any progress on this issue till now? Any solution considered?

[andrewdavidwong]

As far as I know, there has been no additional progress on this. Help is still wanted.

[andrewdavidwong]

As far as I know, there has been no additional progress on this. Help is still wanted.