We have a dev who wants use the Branding extension for directions to our learners: “Spot an issue? Let us know at elearning@xyz.com” It looks lovely and the mailto: link works, but we cannot get the Open in new tab to stick. I change it, click Update, then look at it again and Open in new tab is unchecked. We’ve tried this on 3 different courses. Is this a bug? Thanks!
Yes that is a known issue and it is annoying. The rich text editor used in Evolve is the Froala editor and, at some point, they decided that mailto links should never be opened in a new window… which is fine if you’re using a mail client like Outlook but not so much if you have your browser configured to open a web-based email client for mailto links.
We are looking to replace the Froala editor with something better but it’s far from being a simple change.
In the meantime, as a workaround, you might try this setting?
Thanks for your quick response. Setting Text Editor Links to Always Open New Window isn’t working for the mailto link with the Copyright Message field. It is a good tip though for folks who forget to select Open in New Tab! I did create a mailto link within the Body field of a Text component, and that successfully opened in a new tab. So does that mean that the editor used in components is not the Froala editor used for the Copyright Message field? We’ll look for some other solution that meets leadership’s requirements. (BTW I am testing these efforts in our Intellum sandbox.)
No, it’s the same editor and in fact the code that handles the Always Open in New Window functionality doesn’t have anything to do with the Froala editor, it just hooks into the ‘click handler’ for any links within the Evolve content and instructs them to open the link in a new window.
Although I’m using the Mail app on Mac OS so don’t really experience the underlying issue, I have tried adding a mailto link into the copyright message and, with Always Open New Window enabled I have run the course and debugged it and can see the code that redirects the link into a new window is definitely kicking in for me. And in Firefox it does open a new (empty) window then opens a new message in the Mail app.
Puzzling. Our learners use Chrome browser, probably on a Chromebook but some use Macs or Unix machines. They all use browser-based Gmail. Thanks again for looking into this!
We have success. 
I didn’t make any changes from what I had been testing, and now suddenly the mailto link in the Copyright Message opens in a new tab. Maybe it’s my lucky day and I should buy a lottery ticket!