TYPO3 Core

As part of the RTE configuration (either yaml File or PageTS) you can define the default target attribute for links in the linkbrowser.

Example (yaml):

buttons:
  link:
    properties:
      class:
        allowedClasses: "internal-link,external-link" 
    page:
      properties:
        class:
          default: "internal-link" 
    url:
      properties:
        class:
          default: "external-link" 

classesAnchor:
  internalLink:
    class: "internal-link" 
    type: "page" 
    target: "_top" 
  externalLink:
    class: "external-link" 
    type: "url" 
    target: "_blank" 

The example above defines target="_top" for the internal link class and target="_blank" for the external link class.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Define a RTE configuration as shown above
2. Create a text content element, paste some random text and link the pasted text
3. When the linkbrowser opens initially, the Link Browser tab "Page" is shown with the default link target "_top"
4. Select the tab "External URL" and the default link target keeps "_top", which is wrong
5. Select the tab "Email"
6. Select the tab "External URL" again and now the default link target is "_blank"

I tested this with ext:rte_ckeditor and with ext:rtehtmlarea.

The reason for this behavior is, that the Link Browser uses the default target attribute of the first tab that is opened and passes it as link parameter linkAttributes[target]= to all other tabs. Bugfix could be to exclude the linkAttributes[target]= parameter.

The bug affects TYPO3 v9 and v8 and propably lower versions.