When we added external link / download icons, we imagined that these would help avoid confusion with users who clicked a link that took them to a new place instead of staying on the same place. However, this is less important in "UI-heavy" parts of the page, like the sidebar, footer, etc. You often expect these links to go to other places in general.
I think we should update our CSS rules so that link icons only show up in the main content window, and we use less-opinionated styling for links in the other parts of the UI.
I'll mark this as a bug because I think it's not our intended behavior when we first implemented this but if folks think UI links should have the icon, we can discuss changing that!
What we want
- External link / download icons for links inside the page content (e.g. as part of the "main document")
- No external link / download icons for links that are outside the main content (e.g., sidebar, footer, navbar, etc)
When we added external link / download icons, we imagined that these would help avoid confusion with users who clicked a link that took them to a new place instead of staying on the same place. However, this is less important in "UI-heavy" parts of the page, like the sidebar, footer, etc. You often expect these links to go to other places in general.
I think we should update our CSS rules so that link icons only show up in the main content window, and we use less-opinionated styling for links in the other parts of the UI.
I'll mark this as a bug because I think it's not our intended behavior when we first implemented this but if folks think UI links should have the icon, we can discuss changing that!
What we want