One of the most missed functions from Internet Explorer 7 (with IE7pro addon) was that I could click on a selection within a website and open it in a new tab just as it were a link.
Sure, I can use IE7pro with Internet Explorer 8 but the addon was written for IE 7 and – as far as I know - isn’t fully supported by Internet Explorer 8 by now. The only possibility (that I know of) is to add this by the Accelerator feature, introduced within Internet Explorer 8.
So how it works?
After installation, you do a right click on a selection within a website. Then choose “Link zu Tab” and it will open a new tab. Within this tab, Internet Explorer contacts a PHP script located on your website and send the selection as a parameter to it. Then, the PHP script will do a simple redirection.
Ok, and how to install this?
First of all, download the scripts from here: Link2Tab. You will find three scripts:
- link2tab.xml – this is the accelerator
- link2tab.html – this is the installer for the accelerator
- l2t.php – this is the redirection service
Open all three scripts and search for the term {YOUR_URI}. This needs to be changed to match your homepage, where you plan to put the scripts on. So for example, if your homepage is located under http://www.yoursite.com then change the whole term {YOUR_URI} (yes, with { and } ) to match http://www.yoursite.com .
Save all changes and upload the three scripts. Point your browser to {YOUR_URI}/link2tab.html and click on “Install Accelerator”. This will add the accelerator to your Internet Explorer 8 and you are ready to use it 
After installation, you can delete the installer and the accelerator if nessesary.
You are free to modify or share this with any others. You are free to add some more security to the redirection service or use this all for your (non- / commercial) projects. The scripts are released as freeware and comes with absolute no warrenty!
08/11/2009 at 01:29 Permalink
Another that does a similar thing, without the need to have a webserver installed: http://www.ieaddons.com/en/details/other/Open_URL_in_New_Tab_with_Preview/
09/11/2009 at 19:28 Permalink
Hi Charlie.
Thank you for this link. When I understand IE8 correctly, there is no way of installing an accelerator without an webservice. Your plugin needs an webservice as well.
And there is another thing that needs to be mentioned: If you use my plugin, youre in control about your links. If you use the accelerator from your link, the selection is send to an thirdparty webservice and you dont have any control about what they are doing with your URI.