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POWhy does using target="_blank" cause Javascript to fail?
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  1. POWhy does using target="_blank" cause Javascript to fail?
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    copied!<p>I have a bunch of links that use a target="_blank" attribute to open in a new window. I want to attach Google Analytics goal tracking to clicks of these links. </p> <p>To do this, I tried attaching an onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/event/outgoing')" attribute to the links. </p> <p>But I discovered that for links with a target="_blank" attribute, the Javascript onclick event gets skipped. So the goal is not recorded. In other words, this link successfully records the goal:</p> <pre><code>&lt;a href="http://www.yahoo.com" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/event/outgoing')"&gt;Click me&lt;/a&gt; </code></pre> <p>But this does not:</p> <pre><code>&lt;a href="http://www.yahoo.com" target="_blank" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/event/outgoing')"&gt;Click me&lt;/a&gt; </code></pre> <p>Does anyone know why this might be occurring? Assuming there isn't an easy solution, I assume I'll have to use Javascript to solve the problem. The following code successfully records a goal (but does not open the link):</p> <pre><code>function attach_goal_tracking() { var links = document.getElementsByClassName("buyTicketsLink"); for(var i=0; i&lt;links.length; i++) { links[i].onclick = record_goal; } } function record_goal(e) { e.stop(); pageTracker._trackPageview('/event/outgoing'); } </code></pre> <p>But when I add to the record_goal function to open the link...</p> <pre><code>function record_goal(e) { e.stop(); pageTracker._trackPageview('/event/outgoing'); var newWindow = window.open(this.getAttribute('href'), '_blank'); newWindow.focus(); } </code></pre> <p>...then it fails to track the goal.</p> <p>Can anyone tell me why this might be, and what I should do to get around this problem? FYI I'm using Prototype for Javascript.</p>
 

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