Dataset links to open new tabs by default

[oganm]

It might be better user experience to have any click that normally leaves the browser page open a new tab instead (target="_blank") so that clicking on a dataset won't cause users to lose their search parameters and results?

I don't imagine many use cases where a user would be happy to find one dataset and leave the browser forever so it might be better to make default behaviour one that keeps the browser open

[oganm]

also mentioned by @ppavlidis at #27. Will just do this unless there's an objection

[ppavlidis]

I'm fine with that, though there's a bit of a debate.

For mobile users, opening new tabs is not ideal. I pushed back on that being a concern because Gemma is not really meant for mobile use. I mean, it works and could work better but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect/assume users would be at a larger screen etc.

On the other hand, because the browser is much faster now, and if it does remember your state if you click 'back', it's slightly less of a concern to leave the browser page. But that's a question. The issue implies that it doesn't keep state, but to me it looks like it does but maybe I'm missing something.

But another way to go, eventually, is to allow the user to see more details about the experiment without navigating away. I mean we should understand the use cases for wanting to go to the full experiment page. We can consider simply showing that information in the browser in the first place (when they click the row expander for example).

[oganm]

Even for mobile use I'd find a new tab much more easier really. Newer browsers clearly display when a new tab opens and switches to it seamlessly for most cases

I don't believe we have a mechanism for remembering the state when we go "back" for now

expansion of the details to include all necessary details is an option particularly if the plan is to eventually retire the current experiment view all together?

[ppavlidis]

I doubt we would fully retire it (curators need it at least) but you have the right idea

[arteymix]

We don't memorize search settings from the browser for now and until we do that, it would be unfortunately better to open new tabs when we navigate outside the app.