Moodle in English: Custom menu items

Custom menu items - open in new window

by Joost Elshoff - Wednesday, February 21, 2018, 6:34 PM

Hi all,

A quick question on how to open custom menu items in a new window in Moodle > 3.3 (Clean and Boost tested). We've noticed the information described in previous forum discussions, to make menu items in a new window, don't work as they should:

According to the Moodle Docs on Custom menu items, I should be able to add an item as follows:

Title|https://url.ofthe.site" target="_blank

Title|https://url.ofthe.site" target="new

But in both cases, the '=' sign converts to %3D, causing the link to open in the same window.

Is there any way to work around this? If so, I'd love to see it, and will update the docs for this solution.

Re: Custom menu items - open in new window

by Joost Elshoff - Wednesday, February 21, 2018, 7:32 PM

Addition: the target= bit only seems to be breaking when linking to a url with ? and = symbols in it (such as a direct course or category link).

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Re: Custom menu items - open in new window

by Mary Evans - Thursday, February 22, 2018, 6:34 AM

Hi,

It used to work in the olden days of Moodle 2.0 themes, but with the advent of more sophisticated code and other technology changes, not to mention a new breed of browsers, that particular fix is not as useful as it was.

You could try it using the HTML URL Encoding References for the symbols and spaces etc., which if done correctly will work.

https://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_urlencode.asp

Hope this helps?

Cheers

Mary

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Re: Custom menu items - open in new window

by Joost Elshoff - Thursday, February 22, 2018, 9:41 PM

Hi Mary,

I doubt that would work in the direction of a solution. The thing is, the target bit of the HTML here is being seen as part of the url:

The thing I'm aiming for is:

Support|https://www.the.url/course/index.php?categoryid=119" target="_blank

But it becomes:

https://www.openedu.nl/moodle/course/index.php?categoryid=119%22%20target%3D%22_blank

I don't know whether reversed encoding makes any sense then, but sure would like to have this URL open in a new tab or window.

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Re: Custom menu items - open in new window

by Mary Evans - Sunday, February 25, 2018, 10:24 AM

The thing is that firstly the problem with the encoding is caused by your server.

Adding a link here in this forum does not add the code.

However, the target=_blank has not worked for years. which is probably a browser problem.

Even using Right click and select open in new window, has no effect either so...I think this is bug that will never get fixed.

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Re: Custom menu items - open in new window

by Jane Stradins - Wednesday, August 29, 2018, 10:18 PM

Hey Joost, I've just tried your advice above, adding:

" target="_blank

and it worked for me!

Thank you

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Re: Custom menu items - open in new window

by Meindert Jorna - Wednesday, November 4, 2020, 4:25 PM

Thanks, this works for me also:

" target="_blank

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Re: Custom menu items - open in new window

by Michael Zehr - Tuesday, September 11, 2018, 4:17 PM

I have the same problem. I tried every variation I could think of with spaces and quotes and back-quotes but it seems once the moodle parser detects parameters being passed it consumes everything until the vertical bar, escaping as it goes and putting it into the URL

I suppose one could make a local html with no parameters that automatically redirects to the correct page with parameters? I don't think I'm going to do this, but I'm going to follow this in case someone else can fix it.

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Re: Custom menu items - open in new window

by ovsiknela . - Friday, October 2, 2020, 3:41 PM

Hi all, for me worked this:

FORUM|/mod/forum/view.php&#63id=46"target="_blank

I replaced the question mark (?) in url with ascii code (&#63) for this symbol.

Nothing else helped..

Average of ratings:Useful (1)

Re: Custom menu items - open in new window

by Sarah Ashley - Tuesday, December 8, 2020, 6:50 AM

Thank you so much!
This is the solution that worked for me as well, replacing the ? with the ascii ?
Awesome.

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Re: Custom menu items - open in new window

by Emma Richardson - Tuesday, September 11, 2018, 10:44 PM

Not sure if it makes a difference but I noticed on my links I have them like this " target="_blank" with the quotation mark at the end as well and that has been working for me...however, I am not sure if it works with ? ending urls...

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Re: Custom menu items - open in new window

by Sarah Ruth Finkel - Friday, September 14, 2018, 1:39 AM

This solution worked for me in all browsers, including MS Edge. Thanks so much Emma!!

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Re: Custom menu items - open in new window

by charlo frank - Wednesday, February 13, 2019, 6:21 PM

Works like charm. Big thanks

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Re: Re: Custom menu items - open in new window

by Lee Taesang - Wednesday, June 5, 2019, 10:51 AM

I tested by changing " target="_blank ----> " target="_blank" , but it didn't work.
So, I change the source code of theme rendering.
Here are two examples

1.essential theme

file location : /moodle/theme/essential/classes/output/core_renderer.php
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$content .= html_writer::link($url, $menunode->get_text(),array('target' => '_blank'), array('title' => $menunode->get_title(),
'class' => $class));
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I just added ' array('target' => '_blank') '

2. adaptable theme

file location : moodle/theme/adaptable/renderers.php
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
if (is_object($url) && (get_class($url) == 'moodle_url') && ($url->get_param('helptarget') != null)) {
$helptarget = $url->get_param('helptarget');
$url->remove_params('helptarget');
$content .= html_writer::link($url, $menunode->get_text(), array('title' => $menunode->get_title(),'target' => $helptarget));
} else {
$content .= html_writer::link($url, $menunode->get_text(),array('target' => '_blank'), array('title' => $menunode->get_title()));
}
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I just added ' array('target' => '_blank') '

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Re: Re: Re: Custom menu items - open in new window

by Gareth J Barnard - Wednesday, June 5, 2019, 6:11 PM

Dear Lee,

Sorry, your solution is wrong. You need to add 'target' => '_blank' to the existing array instead of putting it in a new one and pushing the existing array to the fourth parameter of the method and therefore removing its elements from the attributes of the tag that the html_writer produces.

G

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Re: Custom menu items - open in new window

by Russell Sawchuk - Sunday, February 2, 2020, 6:59 AM

Works for me. A huge thanks from me as well, Emma!

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Custom menu items - open in new window