Right-clicking working in IE8 but not in IE9

[JorgeA]

While researching for a post in another part of the Forum, I discovered something odd.

I'm in the process of transitioning my work to a new PC, and so I'm in the awkward situation where I'm doing some things on the old computer and other things on the new computer -- sometimes the same thing on both of them. This is one such case.

The new PC is running Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 9. When I opened the Ars Technica page, I right-clicked on a certain story, but the context menu didn't give me an option to open that link in a new tab or window -- just some irrelevant options to go "back," "forward" "select all," etc. This was surprising because over on my Vista PC running IE8, the same right-clicking action gives me the expected context menu to "open link" in a new tab or in a new window, to "save target as," etc.

To be precise, on the Ars Technica page, with IE8 on Vista if I right-click on the headline, I get that useless context menu, but clicking on the picture associated with the story I get the desired context menu. With IE9 on Win7, clicking on either the headline or the picture yields the useless context menu.

This seems to happen with the main features in the left column on the Ars Technica page, but not with the side stories in the center column. To add to the confusion, the "recent" feature stories in the right-hand column behave the same way in both Vista IE8 and Win7 IE9 as the left-column stories behave in IE8: I can get the desired context menu if I click on the picture, but not if I click on the headline.

What could account for these differences, and is there any way I can recover that "open link in new tab" functionality in IE9? I'd rather open new tabs to get to a derivative page on a website, than have to click the Back button to return to the homepage.

Any ideas?

--JorgeA

[Joseph_sw]

I never like the IE9...

anyhow, how about using the "App key" (key that on the right of right win-key) did they broken too?

i'm usualy navigates links using "Tab key" then use the "App key" for context menu,

and of course I also using proxomitron's filtering to ensure context menu is allowed.

Edited December 5, 2012 by Joseph_sw

[JorgeA]

Joseph_sw,

Oh yeah, THAT key! I completely forgot about it. The only key that gets used less on my PC, is the Pause/Break key, or the Scroll Lock for that matter.

Anyway, here's what happened with the various different links when I tried using that key on IE8 and then IE9, on the Ars Technica homepage:

IE8:

Right-Click with mouse:

Left Column, Middle Column, Right Column

[isn't there a way to do a table on the forum software?]

(Picture) full menu, [n/a], full menu

(Headline) useless menu, full menu, useless menu

App key:

Left Column, Middle Column, Right Column

(Picture) full menu, [n/a], full menu

(Headline) full menu, full menu, full menu

IE9:

Right-Click with mouse:

Left Column, Middle Column, Right Column

(Picture) useless menu, [n/a], full menu

(Headline) useless menu, full menu, useless menu

App key:

Left Column, Middle Column, Right Column

(Picture) useless menu, [n/a], useless menu

(Headline) useless menu, useless menu, useless menu

(Notes: "useless" menu for my purposes. The "full" menu is the one containing the options to "open link in new" tab/window. [n/a] = there's no picture to click on in the middle-column items. Differences in results between "mouse right-clicking" and "app key" are color-coded.)

What do you think?

--JorgeA

[Joseph_sw]

Theres also differents result on what "Properties" will said from various context menu.

if the link are contain both image & text (tested on IE8):

Right click on image part, choose properties, will show image source

Right click on text part, choose properties, it will shows useless information

Using app key, choose properties will shows link destination.

[JorgeA]

How strange.

But thanks for checking, it sounds like this is somehow the intended behavior and not a case of malware or program corruption. But still, this means that my IE8 is more useful than IE9.

--JorgeA

[Tripredacus]

Examining the generated source for ArsTechnica shows that they use different classes for different versions of IE. And also that if the version of IE is 7 or lower, they use different WordPress theme components.