JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, Fourth Edition

Name

Link.target — the target window of a hypertext link

Availability

JavaScript 1.0

Synopsis

                  link.target

Description

target is a read/write string property of the Link object. It specifies the name of the frame or window in which the URL referred to by the Link object should be displayed. The initial value of this property is specified by the target attribute of the <a> tag that creates the Link object. If this attribute is unset, the default is that the window containing the link is used, so following a hypertext link overwrites the document that contains the link.

Note that the value of target is the name of a frame or window, not an actual JavaScript reference to the frame or window itself. The name of a frame is specified by the name attribute of the <frame> tag. The name of a window is specified when the window is created with a call to the Window.open( ) method. If target specifies the name of a window that does not exist, the browser automatically opens a new window to display the URL, and any future links with the same target name use that freshly created window.

Four special target names are supported. The target named "_blank" specifies that a new, empty browser window should be created and used to display the new URL. The target "_self" is the default; it specifies that the new URL should be displayed in the same frame or window as the link. The target "_parent" specifies that the results should be displayed in the parent frame of the frame that contains the link. Finally, ...