>>"Tabbed browsing" is the industry-standard name for being able to view two or more separate web pages within a single instance of a browser, on separate "tabs" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabbed_browsing ). With FF or IE7+, if you Ctrl-click on a link, by default it opens in a new tab instead of overwriting the current tab. You may also right-click on a link and select "Open link in new tab".
>>
>>In IE, this feature was introduced with IE7, it was not available with IE6. In IE6, if you wanted to view a new page while retaining the current one, you had to open the link in a new "window", which was a completely new instance of IE6. This "new window" feature is still available in IE7+ but I imagine is not used (as) much anymore.
>>
>>When discussing this, the normal terminology is:
>>
>>- a new "window" refers to another completely separate instance of the browser
>>- a new "tab" refers to a secondary web page displayed simultaneously within the same instance of the browser
>
>Ok, this confirms what I thought. The Universal Thread provides an interface in one window. As soon as someone goes out of it, by manually launching into a new window, I cannot have any control on that. I understand that sometimes, we may want to launch the message into a new window. But, from that point, because we wouldn't be longer in the interface, some functionalities would be lost. Basically, if such a need is necessary, then we need to discuss what we can do to enhance the interface. This is where the source of the solution should be.

I'm not sure how much "enhancing" of the interface would be required. As I explained earlier:

- when in a secondary tab, "View the map of this thread" respects the tab and behaves exactly as expected. This already works great.

- why can the subsequently available "View" button not work the same way?